Dominguez Slough

Dominguez Slough (American English pronunciation: slew or slu)[1] was an endorheic lake and wetland in present-day Gardena, Los Angeles County, California, United States.

"[2] Gardena is reportedly so named because "of the Laguna Dominguez slough and channel which in summer cuts a green swath across the barren brown landscape—an oasis in the drab, parched landscape between Los Angeles and the harbor area.

"[5] The wildlife value of the wetland was recognized by a newspaper editorial writer of 1894, who stated:[6] From the earliest settlement of this county Nigger slough has been famous as the best duck hunting ground in the southern country.

Sportsmen from all over the southern counties have spent many happy days and nights along the margin of the slough in pursuit of canvasbacks, mallard, cinnamon, teal, widgeon, spike tails, spoon bills, and other varieties of the broad-billed and web-footed tribes.

"[7] In 1903 a county survey stated that the soil at Dominguez Slough was "somewhat unique in its formation, the material having been carried into the lake by the streams, chiefly by Los Angeles River, and there deposited.

The reduction of formerly extensive deep-water areas to wide stretches of oozy mud, partly covered by a thin sheet of water, appears to have coincided with an unusual visitation of red phalarope to this locality.

"[14] The slough was indeed considered more or less impassable to law enforcement in the 1920s as it remained a "dense entanglement of tules, high grass, and willow brush...for years has been a refuge for men hunted by officers".