A Food Chain Story

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Travel Blog
After spending a nice few days dodging raindrops on the California coast just north of LA (hold-up in a funky-good motel in downtown Santa Barbara) we decided to explore going out to the islands that we kept seeing across bay. There are five islands, about an hours boat ride from Ventura CA, that have been a national park since 1980, the Channel Islands. Promoted as North America’s Galapagos we thought it was worth taking a look!

The forecast finally presented 3 clear days so we made plans, which wasn’t easy because the storms have been rolling in off the Pacific pretty regularly. Access to the islands is very controlled, much like the trips we take to Cumberland Island GA (also a National Park). The weather cleared, and with reservations in hand and backpacks loaded we showed up at the dock at 8:00am on Sunday morning. There were about 30 other day-trippers on board so we were excited to think that we might have the campground and the full moon all to ourselves.

Thank goodness we didn’t have to carry our own water, that’s one reason we picked the campground on the big island of Santa Cruz, it had potable water. In spite of the group of a dozen loud teens camped close by (a group from SOAR based in Balsam NC!), we had a great time. The place was lush with green grasses and low shrubs, but very few trees other than the grove of giant Eucalyptus that we camped under. It reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Scotland and Ireland.

The food chain story I wanted to relay: When Europeans came to the islands they brought domestic animals with them. Some of the pigs became wild, reproduced in amazing numbers, and rooted up everything in sight (as we see on Cumberland still today). When the Nature Conservancy and the Park Service became involved they hunted and trapped ALL of the wild pigs, and the rare native flora is beginning to return. The sheep that homesteaders brought in did amazingly well, at one time there were over 60,000 grazing on Santa Cruz. The overgrazing resulted in destabilization of the mountainsides and terrible erosion resulted. Once ALL of the sheep were gone (some were air-lifted out!) the green hills stabilized again.

The island bald eagles disappeared because of DDT softening their eggshells and preventing reproduction. Once the bald eagles were ALL gone, golden eagles came over from the mainland and took over their niche, but goldens are mostly land carnivores instead of fishers like the bald eagles. The rare island foxes (the size of house cats), were a food source for the goldens. In 1997 the remaining 15 foxes were captured and bred in captivity. Now they are doing fine again as are the bald eagles on the island. I love this story!

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Comments

[Frankie]

book
Are you ready to write a book about ecology and the food chain? It would make a wonderful nonfiction for children, especially with your pictures.

[Roger]

enjoying your travels to neat places
Thank you for sharing info about the channel islands. I had been by them on land, military vessels, flights etc but now have a visual idea plus your food chain story of the living history. Best wishes, Roger and Cristina

[Laura]

Always a treat to hear from you two nature nomads. Love the hotel decor. Keep making memories... Love, Laura

[Susan]

Food Chain
I agree a great story. Wonderful pictures. Thank you

[liz]

I just love traveling with you! We finally have about a 5 day warm stretch (70 degrees yesterday). Sunny over the weekend and Monday, but rain forecasted the rest of the week. I was at the extension office yesterday where the word from local farmers is: we've got another major cold blast before it's all over. I've been outside nonstop, cleaning up winter debris, taking care of downed trees and peeking under mulched perennials, hello and covering them back up. It's too wet to work the soil (at least in my garden) so I haven't planted any spring veggies yet. I may throw together a rough coldframe and get things started, if I find some old windows when I go to the dump today. Steve, we've had good co-op meetings...you are always mentioned during them...usually as in "when Steve comes back"! Rev. Chad (The Unity Church guy) can't come to a board meeting because of a standing obligation on 2nd and 4th Tuesday evenings: "Truth on Tap"...at Lexington Avenue Brewery...an evening of "out of the box" dialogue and the beer's on Chad. So the board is going to the brewery instead. Thought you'd like that. Looks like Thompson's hasn't found a buyer yet and the grocery/hardware store is getting dismantled. The grill will remain for awhile. You may have more current info from one of your Saluda friends. Enjoy the vagabonding!

[Holly]

wow wow wow
These travelogues are like candy. Such tasty treats. More! More! More! I am caught in a flux between admiration/excitement/love and jealously. Man, that grass is awfully green from the Gypsy van... Until the next installment, keep living life well, and I'll keep doing the same here in WNC. Cheers! Holly