Yosemite National Park a larger national park by 1890, one which encompassed the valley and its surrounding mountains and forests, paving the way for the National Park System. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has an elevation range from and contains five major vegetation zones: chaparral and oak woodland, lower montane forest, upper montane forest, subalpine zone, and alpine. Of California's 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% are within Yosemite. The park contains suitable
Yosemite National Park Mono Paiute took the survivors as captives back to Mono Lake and absorbed them into the Mono Lake Paiute tribe. After these wars, a number of Native Americans continued to live within the boundaries of Yosemite. A number of Indians supported the growing tourism industry by working as laborers or maids. Later, Indians became part of the tourism industry itself by selling baskets or performing for tourists. A reconstructed "Indian Village of Ahwahnee" has been erected behind the Yosemite Museum, located next to the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center. In 1855, entrepreneur James Mason Hutchings, artist Thomas Ayres and two others