Wildlands Conservation Science

It's getting to be that time again--save the date for the next California Islands Symposium! See you there! Bonus, can you name the butterfly on the blooming giant coreopsis? #santacruzisland #californiaislandssymposium #coreopsis #islands

Santa Catalina Island is perhaps the most well known of the 8 California Channel Islands. However, in many ways - Catalina is a story of two islands. From a literal standpoint, longterm global sea level rise projections suggest the island will eventually be split in two along a narrow isthmus linking Catalina’s west end (pictured here in the foreground) from a larger land mass to the east. However, that process is not likely to occur within our lifetime. While Catalina curre...ntly remains one island, it’s land use is most definitely split in two. With approximately 4,000 human residents on the island and more public visitation than all of its seven siblings combined -Catalina Island land managers strive to balance the rights of private residents and wants of vacationers with the varied needs of sensitive insular resources. Regardless of all that, it’s one hell of a pretty island. See more

When sitting atop the high mountain ridges of Santa Cruz Island, ‘June Gloom’ feels nothing like the dank and monotonous season that marks the early days of summer along the coast of southern California. From these peaks, the days are punctuated by a recurring battle between the dry inland air and the cool moist marine layer of the open ocean. This pulse of fog is essential to the rehydration of the landscape leading into the drier months of late summer and fall. Without this battle of gradients, much of the lush oak woodland lush chaparral vegetation shrouded in this fog fall would convert to a habitat more reminiscent of Baja. With the threat of future climate instability, this process may already have begun. The California Channel Islands have seen a 30% reduction in fog over the past 60 years.

Yesterday, Wildlands hosted a camera trapping workshop from the unique perspective of photographing exotic species’ incursions to the Channel Islands. Here, WCS biologists Morgan Ball and Katrina Olthof describe tail differences between a non-native black rat (Rattus rattus) specimen and a dusky-footed wood rat (Neotoma fuscipes) specimennative to mainland west coast only. Many thanks to our community partners @santabarbarabotanicgarden for housing the Island Camera Trapping Workshop for Biosecurity Monitoring and to @ccber_ucsb for the specimen loan. Thanks to the @channelislandsnps and @nature_org for facilitating! Amelia DuVall

WCS was recently offered an opportunity to compare the past to the present. And guess what? The Now is looking pretty darn good. Channel Islands National Park acquired a number of aerial photographs taken in 1972 of Santa Cruz Island's coastline. Ecologists from The Nature Conservancy thought it would be a great idea to compare these oblique images in order to demonstrate the recovery of the island following the removal of ungulates. With funding from #TNC, this summer we se...t out to revisit the past on #SantaCruzIsland and re-photographed dozens of locations. These photos show a shift away from eroded, exotic grasslands to native habitats. In particular, maritime chaparral, coastal scrub, and riparian habitats are filling into areas once bare. This recovery is directly related to the efforts of The Nature Conservancy and the Park Service in removing large ungulates such as cattle, sheep, and pigs over the past thirty years. #protectpreserve #channelislandsnationalpark #conservation #beforeafter #islandsofthecalifornias #thenatureconservancy