46 Fun Facts About Channel Islands National Park

Channel Islands National Park lies off the coast of which US state?

California's park islands sit only a boat ride from the mainland, yet thousands of years of isolation left them with animals and plants found nowhere else on Earth.

Which of these Channel Islands lies outside the national park?

Santa Catalina is not part of the park: since 1975, when chewing-gum heir Philip Wrigley deeded over his family's land, a private land trust has controlled nearly 90 percent of the island.

Which classic children's novel was inspired by the 'Lone Woman' who lived alone on San Nicolas Island for 18 years?

Island of the Blue Dolphins retells her story: left behind when her people were taken to the mainland in 1835, she survived alone until 1853, living in a hut of whale bones and brush.

Which nonprofit owns the western three-quarters of Santa Cruz Island?

The Nature Conservancy owns the western 76 percent: it took over the island's main ranch in 1987, wound up the livestock business, and handed the Park Service 8,500 acres in 2000.

Which two islands were first protected as a national monument in 1938?

Anacapa and Santa Barbara became Channel Islands National Monument by Franklin Roosevelt's proclamation in April 1938; Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel were added when Congress made it a national park.

What has ringed Channel Islands National Park since 1980?

A national marine sanctuary now protects about 1,470 square miles of sea around the park islands; it was set up partly out of alarm at the 1969 oil spill in the channel.

The endemic island fox, found on six of the Channel Islands, evolved from which larger mainland ancestor?

The grey fox reached the islands thousands of years ago, possibly carried over by people, and its descendants shrank by a third to about the size of a housecat.

What nearly wiped out San Miguel's island foxes in the 1990s, leaving just 15 animals?

Golden eagles colonised the islands after DDT wiped out the fish-eating bald eagles, and feral pigs gave them year-round prey; predation by golden eagles nearly wiped out the foxes, and four subspecies were listed as endangered in 2004.

Why is there no island fox on Anacapa?

It has no reliable fresh water, so the foxes that reached Anacapa could not persist there, while the three larger islands next door each kept a subspecies of their own.

Which bird species lives only on Santa Cruz Island and nowhere else on Earth?

The island scrub jay is larger and brighter than its mainland cousin, with a stout bill for the thick-shelled acorns it buries each fall and digs up to eat months later.

The Channel Islands are nicknamed North America's answer to which islands?

The Galápagos comparison rests on isolation: the islands were never joined to the mainland, so the few animals and plants that made the crossing evolved into forms found nowhere else.

The islands' pygmy mammoth descended from which giant mainland species that swam the channel?

The Columbian mammoth stood about twice as tall on the mainland; marooned on islands where food grew scarce as the seas rose, its descendants shrank into a pygmy species.

What name is given to the large island that the four northern Channel Islands formed during the last ice age?

Santa Rosae formed when ice-age seas dropped and joined the four northern islands; even then a few miles of open water cut it off from the mainland, so its mammoths had to swim out.

What made the pygmy mammoth skeleton found on Santa Rosa Island in 1994 a landmark?

It was nearly complete: when the Park Service called in scientists to identify some exposed bones, they turned out to be the first pygmy mammoth skeleton found virtually whole.

Arlington Springs Man's ice-age bones on Santa Rosa Island are evidence that the first Americans already had what?

Boats were the only way there: the islands were never joined to the mainland, so a man who died on one at the end of the ice age must have crossed open water.

Which large seabird, nearly wiped out by DDT, has its biggest US West Coast breeding colony on West Anacapa?

Brown pelicans almost stopped raising chicks on West Anacapa around 1970, because DDT washing into the sea thinned their eggshells; the colony recovered after the pesticide was banned.

Where did the last of the island Chumash settle when they left for the mainland by the 1820s?

Spanish missions on the mainland took in the last islanders, whose villages had emptied as newcomers' diseases spread and their food supplies were depleted.

The Chumash crossed the channel in a distinctive sewn-plank canoe called what?

The tomol was made from redwood logs that drifted down the coast, split into planks and sewn together; the craft lapsed in the 1830s until a new Brotherhood of the Tomol built Helek in 1976.

Which European explorer first recorded the islands in 1542?

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, sailing for Spain, reached the islands in October 1542 on the first European voyage along the coast north of Baja; he died of an injury there in January 1543.

Which British navigator named San Miguel Island on his 1793 chart, borrowing from a Spanish map?

George Vancouver's 1793 expedition standardized the names of the Channel Islands, taking San Miguel from a Spanish chart; earlier Spanish visitors had each given the islands names of their own.

What was Anacapa's Chumash name, Anyapax, said to mean?

Anyapax means 'mirage or illusion': seen through summer fog or afternoon heat the island seems to change shape, and it is really three separate islets rather than one.

Which wave-carved landmark off East Anacapa is a symbol of Channel Islands National Park?

Arch Rock is a 40-foot natural bridge that waves cut through Anacapa's volcanic rock; James McNeill Whistler, later a famous painter, etched it for a US Coast Survey chart in 1854.

What did the federal government finish on East Anacapa in 1932, the last major one built on the US West Coast?

A lighthouse came late to Anacapa: wrecks piled up on its rocks before an unmanned acetylene beacon went up in 1912, and the full light station followed only in 1932.

Which invasive mammal was eradicated from Anacapa in 2001-02 to protect nesting seabirds?

Black rats, also called ship rats, ate seabird eggs and chicks and severely depleted the island's Scripps's murrelets, until the two-year eradication left Anacapa rat-free.

Which island, about one square mile in size, is the smallest of the eight Channel Islands?

Santa Barbara Island covers just 639 acres, yet families farmed and grazed it in the early 1900s; its native plants and wildlife have been recovering since the ranching ended.

What does the ranger-led hike to Point Bennett on San Miguel reward walkers with?

Thousands of elephant seals and sea lions haul out at Point Bennett; the elephant seals are a comeback story, hunted so hard for their blubber that by the 1880s the species was presumed extinct.

Santa Rosa Island is one of only two places in the world where which rare tree grows wild?

The Torrey pine grows wild only on Santa Rosa Island and near San Diego, the last remnants of a forest that was widespread in the ice age; summer fog gives the trees just enough moisture.

Oilman Edwin Stanton bought most of Santa Cruz Island in 1937 and replaced its sheep with which livestock?

Cattle made more sense when Stanton took over, because the state's beef industry was growing fast; his 54,000-acre island ranch became the largest in its county.

Painted Cave on Santa Cruz Island, one of the world's largest sea caves, gets its colours from what?

Rocks, lichens and algae colour the walls naturally, with no paint involved; the entrance is tall enough for a large boat to sail inside.

What record did the 1969 blow-out that oiled the islands' beaches set at the time?

Largest oil spill in US waters at the time: oil reached beaches from the mainland to the Channel Islands and killed thousands of seabirds, though two later spills have since dwarfed it.

Which California-based oil company ran the platform that blew out in the channel in January 1969?

Union Oil, the company behind the 76 gas stations, ran Platform A, which blew out on January 28, 1969, when pressure from a newly drilled well forced oil and gas up through cracks in the seabed.

What did the Chumash use the tar from the channel's natural oil seeps for?

Caulking and adhesives: the Chumash melted the tar with pine pitch into a glue called yop, then used it to seal the seams of their plank canoes.

Which official concessionaire ferries visitors to the islands?

Island Packers is the regular way in, because no bridge or road reaches the islands: it sails to the two nearest all year and to the outer ones only in season.

Which native mammal of the islands is known to carry the sin nombre hantavirus?

Deer mouse populations in the park have tested positive for hantavirus, which can become airborne when dried droppings are disturbed, so campers are told to keep food sealed and avoid rodents.

About half of the national park's 249,000 acres consists of what?

Ocean waters make up about half the park, because its boundary reaches a nautical mile out from the islands' shores to take in kelp forests, sea caves and tide pools.

What did the US Navy use San Miguel Island for after reclaiming it in 1948?

A bombing range and missile target: the practice left unexploded ordnance behind, which is why visitors today may go beyond the campground area only with a ranger.

Which two Channel Islands does the US Navy use for training and weapons tests?

San Clemente and San Nicolas are Navy islands: San Clemente hosts ship-to-shore live-fire training, while San Nicolas is where the 'Lone Woman' lived alone for 18 years until 1853.

Which bright-orange fish is a common sight for divers in the Channel Islands' kelp forests?

The garibaldi, a bright-orange damselfish, guards algae nests on the rocky reefs and is protected from take; it was named for the red-shirted followers of the Italian revolutionary.

Roughly how far back do the oldest human traces on the northern Channel Islands date?

About 13,000 years: the oldest human bones, from Santa Rosa Island, date to about when the last pygmy mammoths died out, so the first islanders may have met the animals alive.

What is San Miguel Island's ghostly 'caliche forest' made of?

Mineral casts of ancient plants: blowing sand buried trees and shrubs that grew in a cooler, wetter era, and lime hardened around their roots and trunks as the wood rotted away.

Which international designation did all eight Channel Islands receive in 1976?

A biosphere reserve: UNESCO listed the islands as one of the last places where southern California's natural coastal ecosystems survive.

In which mainland city are Channel Islands National Park's headquarters and Robert J. Lagomarsino Visitor Center located?

The park's headquarters and the Robert J. Lagomarsino Visitor Center stand at Ventura Harbor; the center is named for the local congressman who sponsored the bill that created the park.

The 1969 oil spill that blackened Channel Islands beaches helped inspire which annual event?

Earth Day grew out of the spill: Senator Gaylord Nelson saw the damage in 1969 and called for a national teach-in on the environment, first held on April 22, 1970.

Which carnivore, besides the fox, lives natively on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands?

The spotted skunk on these two islands is a subspecies of its own; it became a common sight when fox numbers crashed in the 1990s, then turned scarce again once the foxes recovered.

Which landing on Santa Cruz Island is the park's most visited spot for day trips and camping?

Scorpion Anchorage draws the most visitors because it pairs an easy beach landing with a campground, trails and sea caves to explore, and ferries run there year-round.

Besides wool and beef, which product did Justinian Caire's ranch on Santa Cruz Island ship out in the 1890s?

Wine was part of Caire's plan for a self-sufficient island colony: he planted vineyards in the 1880s alongside orchards and nut groves, so the ranch needed little from the mainland.