On Navy's San Clemente Island, endangered species stage a comeback

longknife

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By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times, Published: July 22, 2013
SAN CLEMENTE ISLAND — The unique wildlife of San Clemente Island has survived the appetites and hooves of feral livestock, bombardments by Navy vessels and wave after wave of amphibious assault vehicles storming local beaches and grassy plateaus.

The operative word is "survived." Through it all, native species clung to life on the 57-square-mile volcanic isle about 75 miles northwest of San Diego that includes the only ship-to-shore bombardment training range in the United States.

I've learned a lot about the Channel Islands while conducting research on my novels. The latest is that a Mexican governor granted several of them to his political supporters, driving out the Chumash Indians who had survived on what they offered for thousands of years. They were superb seamen and even knew how to use tar to keep their wooden boats from leaking. Maybe they will survive after all. Read more @ On Navy's San Clemente Island, endangered species stage a comeback - Stripes - Independent U.S. military news from Iraq, Afghanistan and bases worldwide
 
The Channel Islands up off the coast from Ventura/Oxnard are pretty impressive. Great place to fish, dive for lobster, whale watch, go camping. Now that I think about it, they might make the list of things I miss about California...

If you know where to look on the mainland, there are plenty of old Chumash caves to find in the hills...
 
Granny says, "Dat's right - purt soon won't be no animals to kill an' eat...
:eek:
Study: Species disappearing far faster than before
May 29`14 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Species of plants and animals are becoming extinct at least 1,000 times faster than they did before humans arrived on the scene, and the world is on the brink of a sixth great extinction, a new study says.
The study looks at past and present rates of extinction and finds a lower rate in the past than scientists had thought. Species are now disappearing from Earth about 10 times faster than biologists had believed, said study lead author noted biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. "We are on the verge of the sixth extinction," Pimm said from research at the Dry Tortugas. "Whether we avoid it or not will depend on our actions." The work, published Thursday by the journal Science, was hailed as a landmark study by outside experts. Pimm's study focused on the rate, not the number, of species disappearing from Earth. It calculated a "death rate" of how many species become extinct each year out of 1 million species.

In 1995, Pimm found that the pre-human rate of extinctions on Earth was about 1. But taking into account new research, Pimm and his colleagues refined that background rate to about 0.1. Now, that death rate is about 100 to 1,000, Pimm said. Numerous factors are combining to make species disappear much faster than before, said Pimm and co-author Clinton Jenkins of the Institute of Ecological Research in Brazil. But the No. 1 issue is habitat loss. Species are finding no place to live as more places are built up and altered by humans. Add to that invasive species crowding out native species, climate change affecting where species can survive, and overfishing, Pimm said.

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An Oceanic whitetip shark. The oceanic whitetip shark was once one of the most plentiful predators on Earth and now is rarely seen. Species of plants and animals are going extinct 1,000 faster than they did before humans, with the world on the verge of a sixth great extinction, a new study says. The study looks at the past and present rates of extinction and found a lower rate in the past than scientists had thought. Because of that it means that species are now disappearing from Earth at a rate about ten times faster than biologists had figured before, said study lead author noted biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University.

The buffy-tufted-ear marmoset is a good example, Jenkins said. Its habitat has shrunk because of development in Brazil, and a competing marmoset has taken over where it lives. Now ,it's on the international vulnerable list. The oceanic white-tip shark used to be one of the most abundant predators on Earth and they have been hunted so much they are now rarely seen, said Dalhousie University marine biologist Boris Worm, who wasn't part of the study but praised it. "If we don't do anything, this will go the way of the dinosaurs." Five times, a vast majority of the world's life has been snuffed out in what have been called mass extinctions, often associated with giant meteor strikes. About 66 million years ago, one such extinction killed off the dinosaurs and three out of four species on Earth. Around 252 million years ago, the Great Dying snuffed out about 90 percent of the world's species.

Pimm and Jenkins said there is hope. Both said the use of smartphones and applications such as iNaturalist will help ordinary people and biologists find species in trouble, they said. Once biologists know where endangered species are they can try to save habitats and use captive breeding and other techniques to save the species, they said. One success story is the golden lion tamarin. Decades ago the tiny primates were thought to be extinct because of habitat loss, but they were then found in remote parts of Brazil, bred in captivity and biologists helped set aside new forests for them to live in, Jenkins said. "Now there are more tamarins than there are places to put them," he said.

AP Newswire | Stars and Stripes
 
When one thinks about it, an amazing feat was that of pre-Spanish Chumash Indians making big ocean-going canoes out of hewed timbers and sealed with the tar that washed ashore for millennium. They would paddle out to the islands and even had temporary camps they used when hunting and fishing.

As always, it was Europeans - the Spanish - who tried to turn one into a penal colony turning loose goats and pigs to destroy the balance of nature.
 

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