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Restoration Takes FlightPage 5
That leaves the feral pigs as the island’s primary nemesis. During decades of running wild, the pigs rooted up soils, damaged native plants and turned over Chumash Indian archaeological sites. But the pigs, too, may soon be gone. In 2005 the Conservancy and the Park Service hired a professional contractor, New Zealand-based Prohunt, to eradicate them. The island has been divided into five zones, and Prohunt is systematically removing the pigs zone by zone. The $5 million program uses enter-only, humane cage traps, hunting from a helicopter and ground hunting with tracking dogs. Leaving even one pair of pigs would restart the invasion that has proved so costly to the Santa Cruz ecosystem, says Vermeer. The pig-eradication program is on schedule to eliminate all the feral pigs by the end of the year. Saving a Dozen Unique Species The pig eradication program is aimed at restoring the natural biodiversity of an ecosystem that evolved in isolation over thousands of years, says Kate Faulkner, chief of natural resources for Channel Islands National Park. It is not about killing pigs, which thrive elsewhere, but about saving a dozen unique species, she says: “Our mandate is to protect species that occur here and nowhere else.” Resolving the unintended consequences of human activities on Santa Cruz has sometimes required a heavy human hand. “Extreme situations take extreme mitigation,” says Lyndal Laughrin, director of the University of California’s Santa Cruz Island reserve, a research station operated under an agreement with the Conservancy. “There is no other way to deal with these issues.” Whether these programs will reverse the trend toward extinction is still unknown. “It’s not just a matter of taking away the bad guys,” says Laughrin. “We have to keep a constant eye on ourselves.” “I can’t say we have all the answers,” Faulkner says. “We’re trying to save all the pieces and understand how these islands functioned in the past.” Santa Cruz has functioned as a laboratory for scientists, helping them learn how to remove invasive species and halt the collapse of an ecosystem. And the lessons learned are not limited to this island, says Vermeer. They are being applied to restoration projects around the world where the Conservancy is working to piece back together fractured ecosystems.
Vermeer, for one, is looking forward to watching nature take over at Santa Cruz. “I want to get out of the hand-holding business,” she says. She has left the bald eagle nest area on a trail that crosses open hillsides purple with lupine before it dips into shaded canyons moist enough for giant chain ferns and island ironwood. Around each bend, at almost every crest with a view, Vermeer pauses to exclaim over a lush bloom. She points south across Montañon Ridge to a slope where a clearly visible line marks a dramatic change in the vegetation. The green area is where the Conservancy removed feral sheep in the 1980s, 15 years before the Park Service removed them from the other side of the line. Although the sheep are now gone from there, too, that side of the line is still brown. But it is even more recent changes that have Vermeer all but dancing with excitement. It looks so different from just a year ago, she says standing amid purple needlegrass waving in the ocean breeze. And it’s not only the wet spring; the pigs are gone as well. “History is on our side,” she says. “These natural systems will recover if we give them a little help.” As if to confirm her confidence, a bald eagle appears above, heading toward its nest.
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Copyright © 2008 The Nature Conservancy
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