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Page 2 of Santa Cruz
Island
A Distressing Situation
Whatever the fate of the Santa Cruz
Island Sheep, we wonder what an unemotional, unbiased, scientific evaluation
of this morass would turn up. On the face of it, when considering the most
recent past hundred-year period on Santa Cruz, one might find good reason to
defend the status quo.
I guess a political football can be made out of sheepskin, Ralphie.
What is clear is that an ecology, even
one recently altered, cannot be restored to an earlier pristine condition. We
can't put it back the way it was. The "way it was" defies description.
European contact, dating from 300 years
ago, has changed California's ecology forever. How does the Park Service propose
to "unchange" 300 years of evolution? If the sheep and horses evolved
in 100 years into distinct breeds how can we expect anything like the
pre-European plant population to exist? Even without human pressure it is highly
unlikely the island ecology would have remained unchanged. The sheep have already been absent from
90 percent of the island for a decade so, presumably, 90 percent of the native
plant growth volume has returned for the over 650 species of plants and trees on
the island including the 8 endemic plants.
Native Intelligence
Looking at this question from a purely
numerical standpoint, one-tenth of the previous sheep population of 30,000 is
now living on one-tenth of the land. This limited population has been managed
through organized sports hunting. That the island has supported this
population over decades and can still claim 8 endemic plant species would
suggest that the presence or absence of the sheep rides more on a question of
politics than on preservation. Preserving native vegetation is a
worthwhile goal but one wonders what constitutes "native" anything.
Aren't the sheep, themselves, a singular genetic population, now native
to Santa Cruz Island? The infinite, ever-changing complexity
of nature itself defies the demonstrated puniness of man's understanding of the
natural processes. While the sheep, thought to have originated from the Spanish
Merino, were evolving into a new breed over the course of a century, the plants
that fed them evolved too. The early California Spanish ranchers were known to
have introduced new grasses—whether by design or accident is unclear, as
is the makeup of the pre-Spanish California ecology. These foreign grasses
are functionally native until they can be identified otherwise. Then what?
Motives?
The reportedly poor relationship
between Island Adventures, the National Park Service and the island's civilian
co-owner probably has something to do with the controversy. This 6,500 acre
parcel, the last privately owned piece of all the Channel Islands, must surely
have represented a goal, a prize, for the bureaucrat who could secure it.
In an amusing side note that highlights
the peculiarities permeating this battle over plants and animals, the Park
Service plans to restore the late 1800's sheep ranch and its buildings to
museum-like condition but has no plan to display actual sheep.
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