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The National Park Service manages five of the northernmost Channel Islands; San Miguel Island, Santa Rosa Island, Santa Cruz Island (though it is jointly managed with the Nature Conservancy), Anacapa Island, and Santa Barbara Island. These islands have historically

supported isolated yet incredibly diverse ecosystems due to their location on a stark ocean temperature gradient. During the Pleistocene epoch, the northern Channel Islands are believed to harbor mainly woodland scrub ecosystems that supported large herbivores such as pygmy elephants and possibly even mammoths. A great amount of time later, about twelve to thirteen thousand years ago, the Chumash first arrived on the island. It is speculated they may have caused the disappearance of the mammoths, though current data show that the mammoths became extinct on the islands nearly three thousand years before the arrival of the Chumash. The Chumash were mainly a maritime culture, relying more on the diverse marine ecosystems that surrounded the islands as opposed to the terrestrial island ecosystems. The islands themselves remained relatively undisturbed up until around 1850. As settlers were moving out to the west coast, ranchers took advantage of the vast grazing land located just off the shores. The islands were soon colonized, and ranchers carried a number of invasive plants to the islands either for cultivation or simply by mistake. Each of the Channel Islands supported sheep populations from anywhere between ten and sixty thousand. This overpopulation of herbivores led to the inevitable overgrazing and destruction of the Pleistocene woodland scrubs. As a result of the loss of grazing area, the sheep were replaced with cattle that could be sustained on the degraded grasslands. With the cattle sustained and safely contained on the islands, ranchers brought deer, elk, and wild boar to the

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islands to hunt for sport for a pastime. The effects of these nonnative ungulates went beyond overgrazing, as the animal trails on the island are deeply worn (some are worn down to bedrock) and continue to disrupt shrub and tree growth in the present day. The wild boars created the largest impact by tearing up the ground and topsoil. After the National Park Service took the five northernmost Channel Islands under its jurisdiction, research and management programs were put into place. These programs focus on four categories: Inventory, Research, Restoration, and Monitoring. Restoration efforts have largely removed all nonnative ungulates and have begun to restore natives such as the island fox, but the vegetative communities remain heavily disturbed with an average of 50% exotic species cover on the islands, as indicated by a number of vegetation plots that are monitored by the NPS. Data from these plots show mixed results in invasive species population trends. Some plots show natural restoration of native dominance whereas others show the opposite. It is suspected that this can be explained by a positive correlation between restoration and exposure to water vapor such as fog. Many of the restored oak habitats show more successful restoration which can most likely be attributed to their ability to catch water vapor. With this in mind, researchers intend to implement methods of capturing water vapor to revitalize groundwater in habitats that are highly impacted. Management of the Channel Islands by the NPS remains a relatively new initiative compared to the timespan of European environmental impacts. With continued research, management, and funding, restoration of the Channel Islands does not seem to be unreasonable.