I'm standing at the edge of an incredibly unusual pond.

Bob Ramirez is crouched next to me on the bank, checking a small wire trap into the water.

So those are to catch crayfish?

These are my crayfish traps, I keep them dated.

Bob is actually trying to remove the crayfish.

They're an invasive species and a threat to the native species that live in this pond.

Like the arroyo chub, a small fish that lives in the coastal streams of southern California.

You can see them kind of, they'll flit around there.

Yeah, I see them over there.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Lumina, watercress, harlequin beetles, Cooper's hawks, even a rogue coyote.

All of them live here in this two-acre area.

Some of this stuff is not left for probably thousands of years.

Somehow it survived.

Survived is accurate because this small oasis, it's in the middle of LA County in Santa Monica

literally blocks away from the 405 freeway, tucked between a school and an apartment building.

And at the epicenter of this unlikely nature refuge is a freshwater spring bubbling up

from the earth, just like it did when Bob Ramirez's ancestors lived here, a long, long time

before the city of Los Angeles.

And this little two-acre piece of land is probably the only place in all of LA County

that has been somewhat protected that was Tongva land.

I'm Sarah Weiman and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

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