Anyone who has been to the beach in Malibu has seen the Channel Islands along the horizon, but journeys out to one of the five islands that comprise Channel Islands National Park tend to be few and far between for locals. The park is “worlds apart” ecologically — in the words of the National Park Service — and offers a glimpse into Southern California as it once was.
Not all trips to the Channel Islands are like the special excursion to Santa Cruz Island The Nature Conservancy organized a few months ago. With more than 100 people waiting, they weren’t about to cancel the charter boat leaving Ventura Harbor, even with a double red flag warning for high wind and waves.
After two hours (twice as long as usual), with wave after wave crashing over the deck railings, the boat finally reached its destination and managed to sync up with the small dock. Once everyone disembarked at Prisoner’s Harbor, the green passengers, crew and nature guides got a free microdermabrasion treatment from steady blasts in the face by wind-driven sand.
The primary planned activity, a two-mile hike up and down steep canyons to Pelican Bay, involved rough and rocky terrain. About a third of the way into the hike, a woman slipped on a rock and fell, and had a bleeding leg bandaged knee to ankle by guides trained in first-aid. As the group proceeded, another hiker had an asthma attack.
But, it wasn’t all bad. The scenery was spectacular. There was no cell phone service, no real roads, no cars, no trashcans, no litter, no electricity and no running water. All was quiet except for the waves and the birds — a 93-square-mile island where the few human campers, scientists and rangers could just “get lost.” There were outhouse-style restrooms and a few buildings and fences constructed by ranchers who owned the island and grazed cattle and sheep on it from 1855 to 1987.
Before ranchers came, in the late 1700s, Santa Cruz Island was home to about 1,200 Chumash living in 11 villages, according to the National Park Service. They used fishing nets, went to sea in long canoes made of redwood driftwood (the oldest watercraft found in North America) and traded shell beads with mainland groups. In numerous active archeological sites, scientists have found arrowheads, stone tools, rope and fabric.
The oldest human remains in North America have been found on Santa Cruz’s sister island, Santa Rosa. In 1959, an ancient human skeleton was unearthed in Arlington Springs. Discovered by Phil Orr of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the remains were recently reanalyzed using the latest techniques, and found to be approximately 13,000 years old. That makes it older than any other skeleton in North America (but maybe tied with one in Montana).
The discovery adds weight to the theory that some of the first settlers on the continent migrated from Asia by sailing down the Pacific coast. The Arlington Springs man lived when the four northern Channel Islands were still one big island. The remains of animals from that era have also been discovered there. In 1994, the world’s most complete skeleton of a pygmy mammoth, a dwarf species, was excavated.
The Channel Islands are often called “the Galapagos Islands of North America” because 145 of their plant and animal species are found nowhere else on earth. Santa Cruz Island has 60 of those species, including two that are only found there — the island scrub — jay and the Santa Cruz Island silver lotus. Other unique species include the island fence lizard, island night lizard, Channel Islands slender salamander and Channel Islands spotted skunk.
A few species have already become extinct, including the Santa Barbara Island song sparrow and the Santa Cruz Island monkey flower. They died out because ranchers brought in non-native plants and animals that took over and destroyed some habitats, including pigs, fennel and eucalyptus trees.
The island fox, on six of the eight islands, is found nowhere else on Earth. It’s the largest Channel Island native mammal, but one of the smallest canid species in the world. At about 12 inches high and five pounds, it’s about the size of a housecat.
The island foxes almost became extinct in the 1990s. When DDT wiped out the islands’ bald eagles, golden eagles moved in and started preying on the little foxes. Diseases from dogs, diminished food supply, habitat loss and feral pigs also took their toll.
Endangered species protection was granted to four of the six island fox subspecies in 2004, enabling captive-breeding programs, golden-eagle relocation, bald-eagle reintroductions and efforts to remove feral pigs to take place; since then, the fox’s comeback has become a success story. In August 2016, the U.S. officially delisted three of the four fox subspecies (the Catalina Island fox is still “threatened”).
A number of government agencies, nonprofits and local universities currently conduct research on Channel Island ecosystems, archeology and restoration.
