San Miguel Island Wildlife

On these remote bits of earth, nature has excelled in the creation of strange and wonderful forms. As though to prove her incredible versatility, almost every island has developed species that are endemic - that is, they are peculiar to it alone and are duplicated nowhere else on earth.

- Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

Our story of life at the island begins with the wind. A northwest wind has been blowing down the coast of California in all seasons for millions of years. It has created the unusual combination of climate and nutrients that makes San Miguel Island special - a workplace where nature produces the profusion of life that attracted the earliest aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, the hunters and sealers of the nineteenth century, and the adventurous mariners and fishermen of today.

This ocean wind creates a current. Along the coast of California, the force of the wind moves the surface waters along at one-half knot. The current, instead of flowing southeast parallel to the wind and to the coast as we might expect, turns and flows more nearly south. The earth's eastward rotation causes this turning. It is a phenomenon affecting all motion on a spinning globe - including all ocean currents - with significant consequences when an ocean current flows away from a coastline.

The sun-warmed surface water flowing away from shore cannot be replaced by adjacent surface water. Instead, an upwelling of deep ocean water must take its place. This water is cold and laden with nutrients. San Miguel Island sits in this rich, cold broth; and all that we see there either depends on it or is affected by it.

Mammoths and Other Extinct Animals

Once terra firma emerged from the waves, life on the island established itself by fits and starts. At San Miguel Island an ample fossil record tells us of animals that got started but failed to survive. Herbert Lester, an island resident during the 1930s, found dramatic proof that mammoths once lived on the island. He discovered tusks six feet long, twenty inches in circumference.

Herbie found the tusks in the spring of 1932, but it was not until fall that Dr. Rogers came to the site and saw for himself "exposed upon the surface of a bleak cliff top, a black formation of Pleistocene age, recently planed down by the intermittent sand, the much eroded remains of two great male elephants of the extinct species Elephas imperator, probably the largest and noblest species that ever existed, certainly the climax of animal life in California. The two great beasts lay as they had fallen, in a death struggle, sinking beneath the ooze."

- Elizabeth Lester, island resident, 1930Ð1942

Scientists have debated how mammoths got to Santarosae. For a time many believed their presence was evidence of a prehistoric land bridge. Today, after the pioneering research of Donald Lee Johnson, most authorities believe mammoths swam to the islands - possibly when the water was lower, the island mass larger, and the Santa Barbara Channel narrower than it is today. Radiocarbon dating of mammoth bones on the islands suggests this was well over forty thousand years ago. As time passed, the mammoths evolved, becoming smaller until a distinct island pygmy, four to six feet tall, roamed Santarosae. Although they became extinct about ten thousand years ago, their fossilized remains are still found on the islands from time to time.

Ancestors of today's seals and sea lions shared the large prehistoric island with the mammoths. An extinct species of vampire bat preyed upon both of them. Giant mice, flightless geese, ornate shrews, and giant voles were also among the remarkable creatures now extinct that were living on the island then.

Today's Animals

Scientists and wildlife aficionados call seals and sea lions "pinnipeds," which means "fin-footed". At Point Bennett and nearby islets and coves these animals have established a huge rookery, the most diverse pinniped rookery in the United States and a treasure of the Channel Islands National Park. More than one hundred thirty thousand animals breed on the beaches here each year - more than fifty thousand northern elephant seals, seventy thousand California sea lions, and ten thousand northern fur seals. In the presence of their multitudes, you know that San Miguel is their island and that you are a visitor.

An expedition to Adams Cove and Tyler Bight will acquaint you with these unusual and enchanting creatures. Vast hordes of these animals. cover the beaches and cavort in the shallows. Awakening to their sounds at Tyler Bight is an uplifting experience that you will not forget.

About one thousand harbor seals also live at San Miguel Island. By comparison they are virtually silent and, when on land, shy. You will normally find them in otherwise deserted coves, far from their noisy, gregarious cousins.

The only native terrestrial mammals on the island are several hundred island foxes and an untold number of deer mice.

San Miguel Island is home to the largest breeding population of sea birds on the California coast south of the Farallon Islands. More than a dozen species have established breeding colonies here, primarily on Prince Island and Castle Rock, where they are safe from the only four-legged predator at San Miguel, the island fox. Marine birds at the island include black oyster catchers Cassin's auklets, cormorants, pigeon guillemots, snowy plovers, storm petrels (ashy and Leach's), western gulls, and Xantus' murrelets.

Peregrine falcons nest in the volcanic cliffs of the island's northeast shore and prey upon the sea birds. Red-tailed hawks patrol for mice. Watching the aerial acrobatics of these spectacular predators will convince anyone that surviving here is a serious undertaking.

The intertidal zone is a flux of life: waves eroding the shore, rocks crumbling into the sea - new habitats being created, competed for, and claimed. A walk along the shore is always a treat. But the cornucopia of nature's creativity has spilled most abundantly beneath the waves. Life under the surface is extraordinary. The fertile upwelling of deep oceanic water feeds an immense marine community. The rocks, pinnacle reefs, and kelp jungles of San Miguel Island provide an ideal home for a variety and quantity of fish, crustaceans, and marine mammals unequaled on this coast.

The Island Fox

One of the most interesting and engaging characteristics of island species is their extraordinary tameness - a lack of sophistication in dealings with the human race, which even the bitter teachings of experience do not quickly alter.

- Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

The island fox is a survivor. Twelve thousand years ago, possibly earlier, foxes arrived on the island. They probably drifted across on logs from the mainland when the northern Channel Islands were one island. However they got here, they have survived an ocean passage, island isolation, and eleven thousand years of human habitation and predation. They have survived a century of sheep ranching, decades of naval bombardment, and wanton killing by twentieth century vandals. Even as many of this island's early inhabitants disappeared into what Rachel Carson has called "the final blackness of extinction," the foxes survived.

In surviving they evolved into a miniature version of their mainland relatives, the gray foxes. Today's island specimens aren't quite five pounds in weight, a third the size of their cousins. The species on each of the northern Channel Islands is unique. The San Miguel Island population differs subtly in size and coloration from foxes on Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. Foxes on the southern Channel Islands appear to have been taken there as pets by the Chumash about two thousand years ago.

Like many unsophisticated species that have evolved on islands, the island fox can be remarkably tame. This is particularly evident on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands where they are accustomed to seeing people. At San Miguel Island foxes are more cagey. A good time to see them is at dusk when they are out searching for food. You may catch one unawares on your walk back from Cardwell Point when you are downwind of a fox intent on the hunt.

They feed not only at dusk but also at sunrise. They prey on deer mice, birds, eggs, insects, and sand crabs. Feasting on this last delicacy produces a line of little paw prints going down the beach to the tide line. In a demonstration of a dietary flexibility that must be a part of survivorship, the island foxes supplement their carnivorous menu with selections from the plant world.

The foxes are here to stay. Keep your eyes out for them. You won't see these enchanting animals anywhere else.


Island Wildlife
On these remote bits of earth, nature has excelled in the creation of strange and wonderful forms. As though to prove her incredible versatility, almost every island has developed species that are endemic - that is, they are peculiar to it alone and are duplicated nowhere else on earth. - Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us Our story of life at the island begins with the wind. A northwest wind has been blowing down the coast of California in all seasons for millions of years. It has created the unusual combination of climate and nutrients that makes San Miguel Island special - a workplace where nature produces the profusion of life that attracted the earliest aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, the hunters and sealers of the nineteenth century, and the adventurous mariners and fishermen of today. This ocean wind creates a current. Along the coast of California, the force of the wind moves the surface waters along at one-half knot. The current, instead of flowing southeast parallel to the wind and to the coast as we might expect, turns and flows more nearly south. The earth's eastward rotation causes this turning. It is a phenomenon affecting all motion on a spinning globe - including all ocean currents - with significant consequences when an ocean current flows away from a coastline. The sun-warmed surface water flowing away from shore cannot be replaced by adjacent surface water. Instead, an upwelling of deep ocean water must take its place. This water is cold and laden with nutrients. San Miguel Island sits in this rich, cold broth; and all that we see there either depends on it or is affected by it. Mammoths and Other Extinct Animals Once terra firma emerged from the waves, life on the island established itself by fits and starts. At San Miguel Island an ample fossil record tells us of animals that got started but failed to survive. Herbert Lester, an island resident during the 1930s, found dramatic proof that mammoths once lived on the island. He discovered tusks six feet long, twenty inches in circumference. Herbie found the tusks in the spring of 1932, but it was not until fall that Dr. Rogers came to the site and saw for himself "exposed upon the surface of a bleak cliff top, a black formation of Pleistocene age, recently planed down by the intermittent sand, the much eroded remains of two great male elephants of the extinct species Elephas imperator, probably the largest and noblest species that ever existed, certainly the climax of animal life in California. The two great beasts lay as they had fallen, in a death struggle, sinking beneath the ooze." - Elizabeth Lester, island resident, 1930Ð1942 Scientists have debated how mammoths got to Santarosae. For a time many believed their presence was evidence of a prehistoric land bridge. Today, after the pioneering research of Donald Lee Johnson, most authorities believe mammoths swam to the islands - possibly when the water was lower, the island mass larger, and the Santa Barbara Channel narrower than it is today. Radiocarbon dating of mammoth bones on the islands suggests this was well over forty thousand years ago. As time passed, the mammoths evolved, becoming smaller until a distinct island pygmy, four to six feet tall, roamed Santarosae. Although they became extinct about ten thousand years ago, their fossilized remains are still found on the islands from time to time. Ancestors of today's seals and sea lions shared the large prehistoric island with the mammoths. An extinct species of vampire bat preyed upon both of them. Giant mice, flightless geese, ornate shrews, and giant voles were also among the remarkable creatures now extinct that were living on the island then. Today's Animals Scientists and wildlife aficionados call seals and sea lions "pinnipeds," which means "fin-footed". At Point Bennett and nearby islets and coves these animals have established a huge rookery, the most diverse pinniped rookery in the United States and a treasure of the Channel Islands National Park. More than one hundred thirty thousand animals breed on the beaches here each year - more than fifty thousand northern elephant seals, seventy thousand California sea lions, and ten thousand northern fur seals. In the presence of their multitudes, you know that San Miguel is their island and that you are a visitor. An expedition to Adams Cove and Tyler Bight will acquaint you with these unusual and enchanting creatures. Vast hordes of these animals. cover the beaches and cavort in the shallows. Awakening to their sounds at Tyler Bight is an uplifting experience that you will not forget. About one thousand harbor seals also live at San Miguel Island. By comparison they are virtually silent and, when on land, shy. You will normally find them in otherwise deserted coves, far from their noisy, gregarious cousins. The only native terrestrial mammals on the island are several hundred island foxes and an untold number of deer mice. San Miguel Island is home to the largest breeding population of sea birds on the California coast south of the Farallon Islands. More than a dozen species have established breeding colonies here, primarily on Prince Island and Castle Rock, where they are safe from the only four-legged predator at San Miguel, the island fox. Marine birds at the island include black oyster catchers Cassin's auklets, cormorants, pigeon guillemots, snowy plovers, storm petrels (ashy and Leach's), western gulls, and Xantus' murrelets. Peregrine falcons nest in the volcanic cliffs of the island's northeast shore and prey upon the sea birds. Red-tailed hawks patrol for mice. Watching the aerial acrobatics of these spectacular predators will convince anyone that surviving here is a serious undertaking. The intertidal zone is a flux of life: waves eroding the shore, rocks crumbling into the sea - new habitats being created, competed for, and claimed. A walk along the shore is always a treat. But the cornucopia of nature's creativity has spilled most abundantly beneath the waves. Life under the surface is extraordinary. The fertile upwelling of deep oceanic water feeds an immense marine community. The rocks, pinnacle reefs, and kelp jungles of San Miguel Island provide an ideal home for a variety and quantity of fish, crustaceans, and marine mammals unequaled on this coast. The Island Fox One of the most interesting and engaging characteristics of island species is their extraordinary tameness - a lack of sophistication in dealings with the human race, which even the bitter teachings of experience do not quickly alter. - Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us The island fox is a survivor. Twelve thousand years ago, possibly earlier, foxes arrived on the island. They probably drifted across on logs from the mainland when the northern Channel Islands were one island. However they got here, they have survived an ocean passage, island isolation, and eleven thousand years of human habitation and predation. They have survived a century of sheep ranching, decades of naval bombardment, and wanton killing by twentieth century vandals. Even as many of this island's early inhabitants disappeared into what Rachel Carson has called "the final blackness of extinction," the foxes survived. In surviving they evolved into a miniature version of their mainland relatives, the gray foxes. Today's island specimens aren't quite five pounds in weight, a third the size of their cousins. The species on each of the northern Channel Islands is unique. The San Miguel Island population differs subtly in size and coloration from foxes on Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. Foxes on the southern Channel Islands appear to have been taken there as pets by the Chumash about two thousand years ago. Like many unsophisticated species that have evolved on islands, the island fox can be remarkably tame. This is particularly evident on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands where they are accustomed to seeing people. At San Miguel Island foxes are more cagey. A good time to see them is at dusk when they are out searching for food. You may catch one unawares on your walk back from Cardwell Point when you are downwind of a fox intent on the hunt. They feed not only at dusk but also at sunrise. They prey on deer mice, birds, eggs, insects, and sand crabs. Feasting on this last delicacy produces a line of little paw prints going down the beach to the tide line. In a demonstration of a dietary flexibility that must be a part of survivorship, the island foxes supplement their carnivorous menu with selections from the plant world. The foxes are here to stay. Keep your eyes out for them. You won't see these enchanting animals anywhere else. Contents Page
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