Kira+Peterman's+Poject

Kira Peterman Dr. Connie L. Lester & Dr. John H. Walker AMH3930H/ANT4932H 30 April 2012 Restoring the Channel Islands: Salvation Through Elimination I. Introduction This diversity and isolation makes the islands an important habitat, but a fragile one. It is important because of the many species which are not found anywhere else and therefore have a need to be protected from outside destruction. However, this is difficult as the island habitat is be quite delicate, and requires supervision to ensure the perpetuation of the species living there especially with the influx of nonnative species over the last couple of centuries. This protection was ensured in the same legislature that created the Channel Islands National Park, and consists of a program to oversee the island habitat. Recently, as a result of this long term monitoring, there have been restoration projects underway, including many with the goal of exterminating invasive species. This specific aspect of the island restoration efforts will be discussed here (“Plan Your Visit,” National Park Service). The Channel Islands National Park in southern California, occasionally termed the “North American Galapago s” due to the large diversity on the island, has been a national park since 1980. The park includes five of the eight Channel Islands; Santa Cruz, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, and San Miguel. These five islands, as well as the other three not included within the borders of the national park, house a wealth of plants and animals, including over 2,000 plant and animal species, with 145 of those species living only on the Channel Islands. This diversity comes from the isolation the islands possess, which, similar to the Galapagos Islands, permits evolution to progress separately from the mainland, and allowing different species to develop (“Plan Your Visit,” National Park Service). II. Early Eradication Efforts The islands have had a long history of salvation through extermination, beginning when the islands were mere islands, and lacked the title of National Park. It begins in the 1970s with a mule and donkey elimination program on San Miguel Island. The livestock had been abandoned, and were posing a threat to native species. The last mule was killed in 1976. There was some dissent to this program, but not much. The lack of public opposition is attributed to the killing being done out of the public eye (“Ex-park chief calls for moratorium on island ‘hunt,’” Tim Setnicka, Santa Barbara News-Press). A few years later at the end of the 1970s, a similar program was established on Santa Barbara Island to eradicate hares on the island, though other reports say that population control efforts for rabbits and hares may have begun as early as 1954 (McChesney and Tershy 343). The rabbits and hares caused quite extensive damage to island plants due to their large numbers. According to Setnicka the last hare was killed in 1979, while McChesney and Tershy state the last shot was in 1981. In the same period, there was a pig extermination program on Santa Rosa Island. The pigs have been documented to cause extensive damage to native vegetation, and prove to be a problem on other islands in modern time. On Santa Rosa Island, however, the extermination program was finished in nine months, and over 1,200 pigs were killed in the eradication. Public opposition halted after media showcasing the damage caused by the pigs was aired (“Ex-park chief calls for moratorium on island ‘hunt,’” Tim Setnicka, Santa Barbara News-Press). This was not the last pig elimination project “If we could have gotten away with shooting all the sheep and horses we would have; however, the large opposition quickly erased all thought of such action…all except a few were relocated to the mainland. During the process we had to fight off the idea of establishing legislation which allowed for a Heritage Horse Herd on Santa Cruz” (“Ex-park chief calls for moratorium on island ‘hunt,’” Tim Setnicka, Santa Barbara News-Press). Even the above descriptions are not a comprehensive list of eradication activities. The Nature Conservancy killed over 36,000 sheep in the 1980s because the nonnative sheep were overgrazing the land and causing intense damage to the natural landscape (“Santa Cruz Island,” Nature Conservancy). More would have been killed had the public not gotten word of it. After extermination efforts were halted due to public outcry, the majority of the remaining 9,000 sheep were transported to the mainland, along with approximately 30 horses that had been long abandoned on the island and which were also in the line of fire. In the words of Tim Setnicka, former superintendent of the park, The exact reasons the horses needed to be removed along with the sheep are not stated, but it can be assumed that the hooved animals were damaging vegetation. As can be seen, the history of the Channel Islands is filled with saving the natural habitat at the cost of the lives of the invasive species. III. An In-Depth Look at Later Eradication Efforts: Rats Nonnative rats pose threats to native species worldwide, having been introduced to “over 80% of the world’s islands, accounting for an estimated 40-60% of all bird and reptile extinctions in the world” (“Restoring Anacapa Island: Seabird Habitat,” National Park Service). For Anacapa Island specifically, the rats were brought to the island likely prior to 1940, though the exact date is impossible to know. They were probably transported to the island as accidental passengers on ships, though, as with the date, the exact method of invasion is unknown. Once introduced, however, we do know the damaging effects of their presence. Similar species elimination efforts to those described above were undertaken in more recent times, including successful attempts to rid the Anacapa Island of the nonnative species of black rat //Rattus rattus.// This species of rat preys on many of the islands’ native fauna, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. The rats’ presence was particularly damaging to birds on the island, including some which are found nowhere else such as California brown Pelican. They also posed competition for a subspecies of deer mouse that is only found on Anacapa Island. The native seabirds of the island nest on the cliffs, including two rare species; Xantus’s murrelet and the ashy storm-petrel. Due to the fact that these birds have nests on the surface of the cliffs, the invasive black rats found the eggs and young of these and other birds easy prey. They also preyed on the native deer mouse, hence the necessity of eliminating this invasive species (“Restoring Anacapa Island: Seabird Habitat,” National Park Service). Due to the problems posed by the invasive rats and the desire for the elimination of the rodents, staff from the Channel Islands consulted biologists from the Island Conservation and Ecology Group about the issue. The group had a previous experience in restoring native habitats through invasive species eradication, and so were uniquely suited to help the island staff with the rat infestation. After the consultation, and after looking at past successful island rat exterminations, the Western Region of the National Park Service proposed to research how rats could be eliminated from Anacapa Island (“Eradicating Rats from Anacapa Island,” Faulkner et al). It was found that the island had a rather challenging terrain. It was covered in steep cliffs that would make placing rat poison across the island difficult. A further problem was that the indigenous deer mice would take any poison laid out for the problematic black rats. Furthermore, eradication efforts had to be conscious of the sensitive brown pelican mentioned above, as they do not react well to disturbances and breed and nest for eight months of the year on most of the island. Eventually, a solution was decided upon that would take into account these potential problems and exterminate the black rats while allowing for the perpetuation of the indigenous species of all types Island (“Eradicating Rats from Anacapa Island,” Faulkner et al). It was decided that the rats would be killed with a substance called brodifacoum, an anticoagulant that had been used in other island rat annhilations. The product used is much less toxic than household rat poisons, and had the advantage of being a substance that degraded into carbon dioxide and water, preventing the poison from collecting in the environment. The poison would be applied in the Fall when rats are most hungry and human visitor population is low, as are the bird populations at the time. The issue of not killing the native deer mice was also addressed. A small population of the mice would be help in captivity to prevent any exposure, and the island would be treated in sections so as to not have all the deer mice exposed at one time. Why this would not also prevent a part of the black rat species from eating the poison was not addressed. The black rat extermination, despite widespread support, did have some oppositions, however. A certain Rob Puddicombe, in an attempt to save the rats, sailed a 10 foot long inflatable boat in order to distribute vitamin K pellets to the rats in order to counteract the anticoagulant. He was charged, but was ultimately found not guilty of violating federal law. The judge said, however, that he probably did illegally feed the rats (“Activist Not Guilt of Impeding Rat Killing’” Kelley). From the judge’s statements it can be assumed that he was found not guilty due to a lack of proof rather than a lack of illicit activity. Despite opposition, the two applications were completed a year apart, ending in Fall 2002. Due to monitoring of the island before, after, and during the application of the poison, it can be seen that the seabirds are recovering nicely and native populations have returned to normal. The eradication of the black rats was supported by a number of environmental organizations, and was ultimately successful (“Eradicating Rats from Anacapa Island,” Faulkner et al). IV. An In-Depth Look at Later Eradication Efforts: Feral Pigs and Golden Eagles A second recent salvation through elimination effort involves the removal of feral pigs and golden eagles from Santa Cruz Island, one link link in a complicated food network that was slowly depriving the island of the native fox. This effort began in the 1990s following a drop in the number of foxes. The foxes used to be more commonly sighted than the feral pigs, up until the late 1980s. In the following decade this drastically changed. The decline was attributed to the sudden increase in the golden eagle population. The question now might be, “where do the pigs come in?” That very question is answered two very different ways, according to whom one asks (“Ex-park chief calls for moratorium on island ‘hunt,’” Tim Setnicka, Santa Barbara News-Press). The first and most common answer to that question is the justification for the removal of the pigs. There is a significant amount of literature that states that the pigs increased in number on the island at the same time that the golden eagle population in the west was increasing. The eagles were drawn to the island by the abundance of the piglets, as they made tasty food for eagles. However, pigs are hard to catch and quickly grow too large to be prey for the eagles, so they began eating the foxes as well. The island foxes do not get to a size too large to be eaten. In addition, the pigs breed in abundance often having more than one litter a year while foxes bear young just once per year, in the spring and so are not as quick to compensate for the foxes lost to the eagles. The term for this is apparent competition, where the species are not competing directly with each other but instead have a common predator that preys on one more than the other, causing the one to decline and allowing the other to reproduce as normal (“Feral Pigs Create Havoc on California’s Channel Islands,” University of California). The apparent competition was not, however, a problem until the late twentieth century even though pigs at this point had been present well over a hundred years. This is because the golden eagle population was increasing at the same time that the use of DDT was common. This polllutant caused the egg shells of bald eagles, the former eagle inhabitants of the island, to weaken, which then made the eggs break when the eagles were nesting. The population, as could be expected, plummeted. Bald eagles are very territorial and before their numbers had dropped kept the golden eagles away. As the bald eagles died off the golden eagles quickly moved in (“Feral Pigs Create Gavoc on California’s Channel Islands,” University of California). It was determined that this complicated series of events that had resulted in the large decrease in the fox population could be halted by removing the feral pigs and the golden eagles. It was decided that the pigs would be removed in one part of the island at a time, similar to the plan to eradicate the black rats. The island would be fenced into six parts using as much of existing fence line as possible, and then the pigs would be killed systematically one section at a time, at an estimated rate of one section per year (“Santa Cruz Island Primary Restoration Plan,” National Park Service). Due to disease control, the pigs could not be relocated. This effort was begun in 2005 after much planning (“Feral Pig Eradication Begins on Santa Cruz Island,” National Park Service). The project used many different techniques to complete its goal, including traps, dogs, and snipers. Officials maintained that the killings were humane, but there was some public objection to the methods. Overall 5036 pigs were killed in the project, and it was completed in 2007. Nonnative turkeys began to flourish after the pigs were gone, and a large number of them were also killed to stop their population growth (“Island Pig Eradication Complete,” Griggs). While this sounds like a success story, Setnicka proposes that this was not precisely the situation. He states that the golden foxes were coming to island, not because of the feral pigs as a food source, but only because of their increasing population and the bald eagle decline. He then goes on to say that attributing the golden eagle presence to the pigs was a “media spin” to garner public support for removing the pigs. He also states that the majority of the pigs were, in fact, shot by 1991 so the golden eagles were not eating them. Setnicka, additionally, attains that the feral pig killings were not humane, and, in his 2005 statement, states his belief that the project cannot be successful (“Ex-park chief calls for moratorium on island ‘hunt,’” Tim Setnicka, Santa Barbara News-Press). As stated earlier, the eradication program was ultimately carried out. V. Conclusion As is clear through the above recounting of the history of the Channel Islands, the islands’ past is filled with animal slaughter. Furthermore, the fact that the very superintendent of the national park questions the elimination efforts shows that there may be certain ethical, legal, or moral issues with the history of the Channel Islands National Park, and with the eradication efforts on all of the Channel Islands including those included in the national park. Research can only guess at the long term effects of such efforts, and such projects were previously more hidden from the public and therefore subjected to less critique. Perhaps the increase in public scrutiny that comes with technology is for the better. People can now see photos of how the killing is carried out because there is such easy access to the ability to create media. Plans and proposals are public and almost effortlessly accessed via the internet instead of scrounged for in old file cabinets. As Setnicka states, “each year, as a park superintendent, playing God in your national park gets harder and harder to do” (“Ex-park chief calls for moratorium on island ‘hunt,’” Tim Setnicka, Santa Barbara News-Press). On the other hand, the opposite effect could be the outcome, and instead of public outcry stopping inhumane and unnecessary projects, the same public voice could halt much needed efforts to save native, endangered species. Only time will tell which will occur.

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