Endangered life bounces back on the Navy’s San Clemente Island!
Life endures. If you get (stupid) people to stop damaging the environment, it THRIVES!
By 1990, there were only seven nesting pairs of San Clemente loggerhead shrikes (Lanius ludovicianus mearnsi; SCLS) on San Clemente Island, after years of feral livestock, bombardments by Navy vessels, and wave after wave of amphibious assault vessels. Catalina grass (Dissanthelium californicum) was presumed to be extinct. Deep in a steep canyon was a single San Clemente Island bush mallow (Malacohamnus clementinus), a species that once spread purple flowers all over the island!
A Navy captive-breeding program, funded at $3 million/year has allowed the loggerhead shrikes to increase their numbers to 70 pairs! A few years ago, there were only a few hundred San Clemente Island foxes (Urocyon littoralis). Road signs that urge people to watch out for them have helped bring their numbers to an estimated 1,100! The 8-inch , San Clemente night lizard (Xantusia riversiana reticulata) much bigger than its 2-inch cousins in the mainland California desert, has rebounded so well that the Navy recently petitioned to have the lizard removed from the endangered species list! There are an estimated 21.3 million night lizards on the 21-mile island, one of the highest densities of any lizard species on earth!
In 1992, the Navy removed feral goats and pigs that were descendants of animals brought to the island up to 200 years ago. The Navy also replanted native plants that were started in greenhouses. In addition, Navy sniper training has been moved from nesting areas and bombing targets have been moved from known populations of endangered species. LATimes.com says:
During a recent weekday tour of the island, owned by the Navy since 1934, Melissa Booker, the Navy’s wildlife biologist for the area, said scientists “are seeing plants and animals slowly creeping out of caves and canyon bottoms and spreading out across the savannas. Some places that resembled cratered moonscapes are now covered with native shrubs so thick, it’s hard to wade through them.”
As she spoke, a submarine surfaced offshore near a Navy destroyer and several smaller vessels topped with rotating radar dishes. A few yards away, federally threatened sage sparrows flitted between clumps of federally endangered San Clemente Island Indian paintbrush <Castilleja grisea>.
Naval bombardment ranges still remain on the southern end of the island, and amphibious assault training still continues on beaches of the north, but life is rebounding on the island. Surges in vegetation that had been almost obliterated by feral goats have led to an expanding range of sage sparrows (Artemisiospiza belli clementeae).
As plant and animal species rebound, archaeologist have discovered 4,000 sites of the original indigenous peoples of California, the Gabrielino tribe (Tongva people). True to human nature, among the artifacts was art, an 11-inch boat hand-carved out of a chunk of igneous rock.
“The person who crafted this was an artist,” Navy archaeologist Andrew Yatsko said, cradling the 11-inch-long object in his hands. “Whatever the intent was for creating it, it must have been done in very good times for this artist because these things take a lot of time and attention to make.”
-Bill at
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