© 2000 Wendy Dager

Santa Cruz Island is the most topographically diverse of all the Southern California Islands, with its rough, mountainous regions, deep canyons, and large areas of flatland. It has a stretch of beach, a huge central valley, and breathtaking cliffs, which drop dramatically down into the sea. The island also has a distinctive population of native creatures, including the Santa Cruz Island fox (Urocyon littoralis santacruzae) the spotted skunk (Spilogale gracilis amphialus), the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus santacruzae), and the western harvest mouse (Reithro-dontomys megalotis santacruzae).

Although it gives the illusion of being a serene natural haven, Santa Cruz Island is at the center of yet another storm of controversy.

First the Big Bad Wolf... now this!

Blast to the Past

The island, just 22 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, has weathered its share of conflict, including disputes over land ownership. That finally settled, its current owners are now struggling to return the island to its former state. The owners, The Nature Conservancy (24% ownership) and the National Park Service (76% ownership) wish to transform the island into what it once was, before Los Angeles businessman Edwin Stanton brought cattle there in 1937; before Frenchman Justinian Caire established his wineries in the late 1800s; and even before the 1542 arrival of explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. The two agencies are going back in time by jointly taking on the arduous task of restoring the native ecosystem, including getting rid of certain imported animal life.

Sow-i-cidal Tendencies

Meaning, the non-native pigs have got to go. Permanently.

Numbering approximately 4,000, the pigs were introduced to the island in the mid-19th century. Golden eagles were then drawn to the island because wild porkers make for good bird food. After the eagles became established on the island, they soon began preying on the native foxes, whose numbers are now so low that a captive-breeding program has been established to save them from extinction.

While that’s the first part of the plan to rescue the fox population, part two is not for the faint of heart. The decision has been made to shoot the pigs, which are, by their mere presence, indirectly killing off the foxes.

It’s the only solution, say TNC and the NPS, since the pigs are also responsible for spreading fennel, a weed that can crowd out the native flora. Fennel takeover is serious enough to threaten the restoration of the island, and the only way to control the weed is to burn it and spray it twice with an herbicide. But, first, the pigs need to be eliminated.

Pig in a Poke

Problems with porcine provocateurs are not all that unusual. According to a June 12, 1999 study released by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, pigs, which are native to Eurasia and North Africa, have been introduced into some U.S. parks for hunting. These include parks in the California coastal prairie and on the Hawaiian islands. These feral pigs have substantially changed the vegetation in these parks by facilitating annual plants’ invasion of the overturned soil and intensifying soil erosion. In Florida and Texas, pigs damage grain, peanut, soybean, cotton, hay, vegetable crops, and the environment. Pigs also transmit and are reservoirs for serious human diseases, including brucellosis, pseudobrucellosis, and trichinosis.

Disease is the reason the Santa Cruz Island feral pigs cannot be brought to the mainland. The California Department of Fish and Game fear they carry diseases that could infect domestic swine.

Outfoxed

With disease, destruction of plants, and the decimation of the native fox as decision factors, so begins the agencies’ unpleasant job of planning the pigs’ demise. Ultimately, TNC and the NPS hope that this extreme step will benefit an island that has seen many changes over the past four hundred years, and, undoubtedly, will go through many more before returning to what Mother Nature intended before man stepped in.

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