48 Fun Facts About Channel Islands National Park

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

The park islands lie off the Southern California coast between Point Conception and Los Angeles, the nearest about a dozen miles from the Oxnard shore.

How many of the eight Channel Islands are in the national park?

Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Miguel and Santa Rosa; Catalina, San Nicolas and San Clemente are not.

What is the highest point on Santa Cruz Island, the largest island in the park?

Devils Peak is the highest point on Santa Cruz Island at roughly 2,450 feet; the island is 22 miles long and the largest of the eight Channel Islands.

What share of Santa Cruz Island is owned by The Nature Conservancy, not the Park Service?

The Conservancy inherited the ranch lands when Carey Stanton died in 1987 and quickly ended the cattle era.

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.

In which year was Channel Islands National Park established?

Congress upgraded the monument to Channel Islands National Park on March 5, 1980, adding Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel; the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary followed that September.

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

The island fox is a dwarf descendant of the mainland grey fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), shrunk to housecat size; each of the six islands it inhabits has its own subspecies.

What drove island fox numbers on San Miguel from 450 adults to just 15 between 1994 and 1999?

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?

Santa Barbara Island lacks foxes too, being simply too small to feed a viable population.

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

The island scrub jay (Aphelocoma insularis) is confined to Santa Cruz Island, the only island-endemic land bird in the continental United States; it is larger and bluer than its mainland relative.

How many species found in the park exist nowhere else in the world?

The Park Service counts 145 endemic species among more than 2,000 plants and animals recorded in the park, from the island fox to island-only plants such as the Santa Cruz Island ironwood.

The pygmy mammoth of the northern Channel Islands stood how tall at the shoulder?

Mammuthus exilis stood about 5.6 to 6.6 feet at the shoulder, a dwarfed descendant of the 13-foot Columbian mammoth that swam to the islands when ice-age sea levels were low.

What was the name of the single large island the four northern islands formed during the last ice age?

Santa Rosae joined the four northern islands when ice-age seas stood some 400 feet lower; it lay about 5 miles offshore and never had a land bridge, so mammoths swam across.

Roughly what share of the pygmy mammoth skeleton found on Santa Rosa Island in 1994 was recovered?

About 90 percent of the skeleton was recovered, the most complete pygmy mammoth ever found; the 50-year-old male, excavated near Carrington Point by Larry Agenbroad's team, went to a mainland museum.

Arlington Springs Man, found on Santa Rosa Island in 1959, is significant as what?

Radiocarbon dating makes Arlington Springs Man the earliest dated adult human in North America, from the close of the last ice age, and shows the first islanders arrived by boat since the islands were never joined to the mainland.

Who found the Arlington Springs bones in 1959, reportedly while trying to free a stuck jeep?

Phil C. Orr, a mainland museum curator, spotted two femurs eroding from a canyon wall 37 feet below the surface; heiress Kitty Harvey had funded his Santa Rosa Island digs.

Roughly how many Chumash lived on the northern islands when the Spanish arrived?

Some two to three thousand Chumash lived on the northern islands at contact, in eleven villages on Santa Cruz, eight on Santa Rosa and two on San Miguel; the last moved to mainland missions in the 1820s.

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

The tomol, a sewn redwood-plank canoe, let the Chumash fish for swordfish in deep water; the modern tomol 'Helek', built by the Brotherhood of the Tomol, was paddled around the islands in the 1970s.

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 fixed the name San Miguel on his 1793 chart, taking it from Spanish maps; the 1542 explorer had died there, and sheep ranchers ran the island from 1850 to 1948.

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

Anyapax means 'mirage' or 'illusion' in Chumash, describing how the island's profile shimmers and shifts in the haze; the island is really a chain of narrow islets little more than a quarter-mile wide.

What is Arch Rock on East Anacapa?

It is the islet's best-known feature and a favourite for photographers arriving on the ferry.

The East Anacapa Island Light, finished in 1932, holds what distinction?

Coast Guard crews of six served two-year tours from 1939; the station was automated in 1962 and the Park Service moved into the houses in 1970.

Which sidewheel steamer struck the rocks off Middle Anacapa at full speed in December 1853?

Everyone aboard survived and was rescued a week later; divers can still visit the wreck, and its cargo may have brought the first ship rats.

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

Black rats, also called ship rats, had infested Anacapa since at least the early 1900s and ate seabird eggs; helicopters dropped poison bait across the islets in 2001 and 2002, and murrelet nesting rebounded.

Santa Barbara Island, the smallest and southernmost of the eight, covers roughly how much area?

Santa Barbara Island covers about one square mile (639 acres), rising to 634-foot Signal Hill; it hosts a large sea lion rookery and a major Scripps's murrelet colony.

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

Point Bennett hosts one of the world's largest pinniped gatherings, with thousands of elephant seals and sea lions of several species hauled out; beyond the Cuyler Harbor campground trail, San Miguel hiking is ranger-led only.

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

The Torrey pine, the rarest pine in the United States, grows wild only on Santa Rosa Island and at Torrey Pines near San Diego; the island trees form their own subspecies, insularis.

Vail & Vickers sold Santa Rosa Island to the government in 1986 for roughly how much?

The government paid Vail & Vickers nearly $30 million ($29.5 million) for Santa Rosa Island in 1986, but the family kept ranching rights; cattle left in 1998 and the last deer and elk hunts ended in 2011.

Which Los Angeles oilman bought most of Santa Cruz Island and switched it from sheep to cattle?

Edwin Stanton, a Los Angeles oil executive, bought the Caire heirs' nine-tenths of Santa Cruz Island in 1937 and replaced sheep with cattle; his son Carey ran the ranch until his death in 1987.

What is Painted Cave on Santa Cruz Island?

Painted Cave is one of the world's largest sea caves, running nearly a quarter-mile into the island's north shore with an entrance about 160 feet high; its name comes from the colourful lichens and algae on its walls.

The 1969 oil-rig blow-out that coated the islands' beaches was, at the time, what?

Some 80,000 to 100,000 barrels spewed into the channel, at the time the largest oil spill in US territorial waters; it killed around 3,600 seabirds and spurred the first Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Which oil company's rig blew out six miles off the coast in January 1969?

Union Oil's Platform A, about six miles off Summerland, blew out on January 28, 1969, when pressure from a newly drilled well forced oil and gas through fractures in the seabed.

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

The Chumash used the asphaltum for caulking and adhesives, sealing their plank canoes and fixing points to shafts; Father Pedro Font described the seeps near Carpinteria in 1776.

Which official concessionaire ferries visitors to the islands?

Island Packers, the park's boat concessionaire since 1968, runs day trips and camper drop-offs from the mainland harbors opposite the islands; crossings take one to three hours.

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

The island deer mouse, a native subspecies abundant on every island, carries sin nombre virus at high rates, which is why the park warns campers to keep food and tents sealed.

Roughly what fraction of the park's 249,000 acres lies under the ocean?

About half the park's 249,000 acres is ocean, since the boundary reaches a nautical mile out from each island; marine life there runs from kelp forests to passing blue whales.

During World War II, San Miguel Island was used for what?

The Navy used San Miguel as a bombing range in World War II and for target practice into the 1960s; unexploded ordnance is one reason hiking beyond the campground is ranger-led.

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

San Clemente and San Nicolas are Navy property: San Clemente hosts ship-to-shore live-fire training, while San Nicolas, home of the 'Lone Woman' Juana Maria until 1853, serves the Point Mugu missile test range.

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

The garibaldi, a bright-orange damselfish up to about 14 inches long, guards algae nests on the rocky reefs and is protected from take; it was named for the red-shirted followers of the Italian revolutionary.

Ancient Paleocoastal sites on the northern islands date back how far?

Paleocoastal sites on the northern islands date back 8,000 to 13,000 years; crescents, stemmed points and shell middens at places like Daisy Cave on San Miguel show early seafarers harvesting fish, shellfish and seabirds.

Archaeologists from which university found the 10,000-year-old 'Tuqan Man' on San Miguel in 2005?

A University of Oregon team found Tuqan Man in 2005 after beach erosion exposed the bones on San Miguel Island; Tuqan is the Chumash name for the island, and the Chumash later reburied him there.

In which year did all eight Channel Islands become a UNESCO biosphere reserve?

Five of them were made a national park on March 5, 1980.

In which mainland city are the 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.

How many days did crews take to seal the ruptured Union Oil well after the January 1969 blow-out?

Crews took about 11 days to plug the well with cement after the January 28 blow-out, though oil kept seeping from seabed fissures for weeks; the slick covered some 800 square miles.

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

The island spotted skunk, a subspecies of the western spotted skunk, is native only to Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands; it is nocturnal and far less often seen than the fox it shares the islands with.

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

A new island visitor center opened at Scorpion Ranch in April 2009.

Which of the five park islands lies in a different county from the other four?

Anacapa is the only park island in the county that also holds the park's mainland headquarters; San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara Island all belong to the county to its west.