In the early 2000s, wildlife ecologist Peter Sharpe climbed into a bald eagle’s nest on the edge of a cliff. He was completely focused on the task at hand: placing identification tags on a juvenile eagle’s legs and wings. He wore a hard hat, like a construction worker; a previous eagle-tagging mission had sent him to the hospital after the dive-bombing parents sank their talons into his scalp.
Sharpe’s efforts were part of a larger initiative to reintroduce native wildlife in Channel Islands National Park, off the coast of Southern California, and restore the islands’ ecosystems. The bald eagle population collapsed in the 1950s after the powerful insecticide DDT, manufactured and dumped in the ocean by Montrose Chemical Corp., thinned and weakened the birds’ eggshells, causing the keystone species to go locally extinct.
Sharpe and his fellow scientists were successful, and bald eagles were reintroduced in 2002. This was only the beginning: After Channel Islands National Park was established in 1980, a serious effort to restore the native habitat gained steam. Today, the islands are home to around 50 bald eagles, and other formerly threatened species are once again thriving, including the island fox, peregrine falcons and the island scrub jay, which reseeds the islands’ oak trees. Point Bennet, on the coast of San Miguel Island, now hosts the largest seal and sea lion rookery in the world.
Chuck Graham, a wildlife photographer and guide, spent over 20 years documenting the recovery effort, which he considers a conservation success story. It took decades of work, and the non-native species that dominated the landscape had to be removed — feral pigs were tearing up the ground, while golden eagles had hunted the island foxes to near-extinction. Graham sees the Channel Islands as an excellent model for ecologically disturbed places on the mainland.
“It’s been an incredible turnaround. Getting to document it and watch it has been amazing,” said Graham. “If you just let the work happen, you get to see the result. The islands are such a good example of that.” —Theo Whitcomb is an editorial intern at High Country News.
-
Hack tower overlooking the north side of Santa Cruz Island. This is one of a couple towers used to house 8-week-old bald eaglets before releasing them a month later to reestablish historic habitat across the chain of islands. Summer 2003. -
Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies, looking in on an 8-week-old bald eaglet inside a hack tower on Santa Cruz Island. Spring 2003. -
Portrait of an 8-week-old bald eaglet headed to Santa Cruz Island. Spring 2002.
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
