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sea cave. I sat quietly and motionless outside the entrance and
watched the guillemots – some of the rarest seabirds in the
world– bring fish to their hungry broods.
It’s good to see more seabirds in and around the
Channel Islands, particularly surrounding Anacapa
Island, the narrowest islet in the chain. For decades,
black rats wreaked havoc on the isle. They survived
shipwrecks like the
Winfield Scott
in 1853, affording
them the luxury to colonize the entire island,
thus making life difficult for defenseless island
inhabitants. That made it a tough go for
murrelets, guillemots and other pelagic birds
like Cassin’s Auklets and western gulls. The
rats also preyed on endemic deer mice, side-
blotched lizards and alligator lizards.
By 2002 the National Park Service had
eradicated black rats from the island, restoring a natural
balance to the fragile ecosystem. The results are astounding,
especially for the Xantus’s murrelets whose numbers continue to
climb each year. The Channel Islands – particularly Anacapa Island
– is the most important breeding and nesting site for these tiny
seabirds along the entire Pacific coastline of the western U.S.
Where Eagles Dare
The distorted Bishop Pine stood out like no other within a
narrow canyon choked full of the evergreen trees on northern Santa Cruz
Island. The top of the tree was mushroom-shaped, crowned with sun-
bleached sticks and branches woven into a sturdy nest eight feet in
diameter, its center padded down with dried grasses, twigs and
discarded fish bones. Hopping around inside its nest was an
eight-week-old bald eagle chick not yet ready to fly.
From 2002 to 2006, the National Park Service, the
Nature Conservancy, along with the Institute for
Wildlife Studies, released 60 bald eagles on Santa Cruz
Island. Due to DDT poisoning the majestic raptors had
Carrie J Riley
Financial Advisor
.
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Suite A
Montecito, CA 93108
805-565-8793