Santa Cruz Island (Spanish: Isla Santa Cruz, Chumash: Limuw[1]) is located off the southwestern coast of Ventura, California, United States. It is the largest island in California[2] and largest of the eight islands in the Channel Islands archipelago and Channel Islands National Park.[3] Forming part of the northern group of the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz is 22 miles (35 km) long and 2 to 6 miles (3 to 10 km) wide with an area of 61,764.6 acres (249.952 km2).
The island's coastline has steep cliffs, large sea caves, coves, and sandy beaches. The highest point is Devils Peak, at over 2,450 feet (747 m). A central valley splits the island along the Santa Cruz Island Fault, with volcanic rock on the north and older sedimentary rock on the south. This volcanic rock was heavily fractured during an uplift phase that formed the island, and over a hundred large sea caves have been carved into the resulting faults. The largest of these is Painted Cave, among[quantify] the world's largest.[4]
Archaeological investigations indicate that Santa Cruz Island has been occupied for at least 10,000 years. It was known as Limuw (place of the sea) or Michumash in the Chumash language.[3][6] The Chumash people who lived on the island developed a highly complex society dependent on marine harvest, craft specialization and trade with the mainland population.[7]Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo first observed the island in 1542, later estimated to be inhabited by 2,000 to 3,000 Chumash on the three northern Channel Islands, with 11 villages on Santa Cruz.[8]
In 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno led the last Spanish expedition to California. His map named Santa Cruz Island the Isla de Gente Barbuda (island of the bearded people). Between 1602 and 1769 there was no recorded European contact with the island. Finally, in 1769, the land-and-sea expedition of Don Gaspar de Portolà reached Santa Cruz Island. Traveling with him were Father Juan González Vizcaíno and Father Francisco Palóu. Father Palóu wrote of Father Vizcaíno's visit to the Santa Cruz village of Xaxas that the missionaries on ship went ashore and "they were well received by the heathen and presented with fish, in return for which the Indians were given some strings of beads."[3]
The island was considered for establishment of a Catholic mission to serve the large Chumash population. When Mission San Buenaventura was founded across the channel in 1782, it commenced the slow religious conversion of the Santa Cruz Chumash. Beset by diseases such as measles, the Chumash declined in numbers until, in 1822, the last of the Chumash left the island for mainland California missions.[3][8]: 100
The name of Santa Cruz for the island came about when Gaspar de Portola expedition visited the Chumash village Xaxas on the island. The Chumash on the next day returned a staff, topped by an iron cross, which had been inadvertently left behind by the Spanish. Hence, the name La Isla de la Santa Cruz (island of the holy cross) appeared on their exploration map of 1770. George Vancouver used the same name on his 1793 map.[8]
With Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, the Mexican government asserted its control over Alta California. In an effort to increase the Mexican presence, the government began sending convicted criminals to California in 1830. Around 80 prisoners were sent to Santa Barbara where, upon arrival, 31 incorrigibles were sent to Santa Cruz Island. They lived for a short time in an area now known as Prisoners' Harbor before escaping to the mainland.[3][8]: 100
Mexican land grant
Governor Juan Alvarado made a Mexican land grant of the Island of Santa Cruz to his aide Captain Andrés Castillero in 1839. When California became a state in 1850, the United States government, through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, required that land previously granted by Spanish and Mexican governments be proved before the Board of Land Commissioners. A claim was filed with the Land Commission in 1852,[10] confirmed by the US Supreme Court[11] in 1860, and the grant was patented to Andrés Castillero in 1867.[12][3][8]: 101–102 Castillero transferred title to his agent William Barron in 1857.
William Barron was a San Francisco businessman and co-owner of the company Barron, Forbes & Co. Dr. James Barron Shaw was hired to manage things, and charged by Barron to start a sheep operation. He built corrals and houses for himself and his employees and expanded the road system. He imported cattle, horses, and sheep to the island and erected one of the earliest wharves along the California coast at Prisoners' Harbor. Shaw was the first rancher to ship sheep to San Francisco by steamer, some selling at $30 per animal. By 1869, the year he left Santa Cruz, Shaw's island sheep ranch was well known, and some 24,000 sheep grazed the hills and valleys of Santa Cruz Island.[3][8]: 102 At that time, the gross proceeds from the ranch on Santa Cruz Island were supposedly $50,000.[3][8]: 102–103 Barron sold the island for $150,000 in 1869, and Shaw left for San Francisco and Los Alamos where he continued ranching.
The island was purchased by ten investors from San Francisco, headed by Gustave Mahé. One of the investors, Justinian Caire, was a French immigrant and founder of a successful San Francisco hardware business (Justinian Caire Company)[13] that sold equipment to miners. By 1886 Caire had acquired all of the shares of the Santa Cruz Island Company which he and his colleagues had founded in 1869. He then implemented his vision of building a self-sustaining sheep and cattle ranch, vineyard, nut and fruit grove operation on the island. Main Ranch was augmented with nine other ranches, Prisoners' Harbor, Christy, Scorpion, Smugglers, Forney's Cove/Rancho Nuevo, Poso, Buena Vista Portezuela, and Sur Ranch. In 1885, he operated the largest private telephone system in the US at that time. A post office operated from 1895 until 1903, while there were 110 workers on the island in 1889. The operation received water from four springs, El Pato, Gallina, The Dindos and The Peacock, which fed into a 26,000-US-gallon (98,000 L) reservoir, tanks and dams. The vineyard was planted in 1884 and by 1895, the winery was maturing 86,000-US-gallon (330,000 L) from the 200-acre (80 ha) vineyard.
Justinian Caire's will stipulated his two sons, Arthur and Frederic, were to be executors of his will and continue management of operations with little change, though Justinian signed over to his wife Albina, all shares in the Justinian Caire Company and Santa Cruz Company the year before he died in 1897. His sons continued a successful livestock, winemaking[14][page needed] and ranching industry on the island after his death, at least until Albina distributed Santa Cruz Island Company shares amongst her children between late 1910 and early 1911.[3][8]: 104–138 Albina, Fred, Arthur, Delphine and Helene received 86 percent of the stock, while the two married daughters Amelie and Aglaë received 14 percent. Beginning in 1910 an extended and complicated litigation was brought by Caire's two married daughters against their mother and four siblings. The married daughters' families, led by in-law Ambrose Gherini, retained 6,000 acres (2,450 hectares) on the east end of the island. In 1936 the Caire family reportedly offered their 90% of the island for $750,000 to the state of California for use as a state or federal park, but nothing came of it. The majority of Caire's descendants were compelled in to sell it in 1937 to pay their legal costs.[14][3][8]: 138–157
The buyer was Los Angeles oilman Edwin Stanton. Stanton's purchase of the major part of Santa Cruz Island brought a major shift in agricultural production on the island. After trying for a short time to continue the sheep operation, bringing in 10,000 head, he decided to switch to beef production. At the time, the beef industry in California was growing rapidly, with Santa Barbara County among the top ten beef producers in the state.[3]
Edwin Stanton's ranch on Santa Cruz Island saw changes that reflected the evolution of cattle ranching in a working landscape. While retaining most of the 19th century structures dating from the Caire period, Stanton constructed a few buildings to meet the needs of his cattle ranch, the most notable of which is Rancho del Norte on the isthmus. Pasture fencing and corrals were altered to suit the cattle operation and an extensive water system was added to provide water to the cattle.[3][8]: 157–159
The Gherini family, descendants of Justinian Caire's two daughters, continued their sheep ranching operations on the east end of Santa Cruz Island until 1984, using Scorpion Ranch as their base. This was the area east of the Montañon range, which included Scorpion Harbor and Smugglers Cove. They managed the island with resident managers and laborers and often worked as a family during shearing and during the summer. Production dropped during the 1970s and 1980s and the expense of ranching on a remote island rose.
National Park and Nature Conservancy preserve
Potato HarborThe north coast of Santa Cruz Island in August
Protracted litigation between the Gherinis and the federal government started in 1980, when Channel Islands National Park was designated and Congress authorized the purchase of the family's remaining land, about 10% of the island on the east end. But the purchase was held up as family members pushed the federal government to pay what they believed was the appropriate amount. In the early 1990s, the government managed to buy the interests of Francis Gherini's three siblings for about $4 million apiece. But the former Oxnard attorney continued to insist that the offer was too low, keeping his 25% interest in the 6,264-acre (25.35 km2) ranch and leaving the Park Service with 75%, effectively blocking the establishment of the park. After 16 years of negotiation, in November 1996, government officials settled with Gherini for 14 million dollars which included 2 million dollars in back interest, clearing the way for the park to be opened to the public.[15] The last of the 10,000 sheep on the island were removed by 1999.[8]: 138–157
With Edwin Stanton's death in 1964, his widow and son, Carey, re-incorporated the Santa Cruz Island Company and continued the cattle operations on the island. Carey Stanton died unexpectedly in 1987 at the ranch and was buried in the family plot in the island chapel yard at the Main Ranch. The real property passed to The Nature Conservancy through a prior agreement that Carey Stanton had established with the non-profit organization.[16] The Nature Conservancy rapidly liquidated the cattle operation and ended the ranching era on the island.[3][14][page needed] They also were able to eliminate the last of the feral pigs by 2006.[8]: 160–165 The removal of the pigs took a total of 14 months, and was accomplished through a mix of trapping, aerial shooting from helicopters, ground based hunting with dogs, and the use of sterilized adult pigs with radio collars to locate surviving pigs.[17] The time taken to eradicate pigs on Santa Cruz Island was about half that taken on a neighboring island of similar size (Santa Rosa Island)[17] A gift of 8,500 acres (3,400 hectares) from the Nature Conservancy to the park was completed in 2000.[3]
The National Park Service owns and operates approximately 24% of Santa Cruz Island. The remaining land, known as the Santa Cruz Island Reserve, is used for scientific research and education, and is managed by a combination of organizations which includes The Nature Conservancy, the University of California Natural Reserve System, and the Santa Cruz Island Foundation. The Reserve and its staff provides accommodations for visiting students and researchers.
Other uses
The Chumash have revived their cultural practice of crossing from Channel Islands Harbor to the island in a 17.2-mile journey via tomol, a wooden plank boat.
Santa Cruz was a base for otter hunters, fishermen, and smugglers. The Channel Islands often provided smugglers and bootleggers with convenient yet isolated hideaways where they could store their goods. One such area is known today as Smugglers Cove.[3]
George Nidever recalled hunting otter at Santa Cruz in the winter of 1835–36. Working from a base camp at Santa Rosa Island, he and two others obtained 60 skins that season. Fishermen encamped on the island, trading fish for other goods from passing boats.[3]
UC Santa Barbara established a summer geology class in 1963, and the Santa Cruz Island Field Station in 1966.[8]: 161
The Santa Cruz Island Hunt Club operated from 1966 until 1985, beginning as a sheep and pig hunting during a rifle season and an archery season.[8]: 162
The United States military began to use Santa Cruz Island during World War II, and has constructed and maintained strategic installations on the island. Like all of the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz Island was used as an early warning outpost for observing enemy planes and ships during World War II. During the Cold War a communications station was installed as a part of the Pacific Missile Range Facility. This station remains in operation, although not at the levels of use seen in the 1950s and 1960s.[3]
Lichen-encrusted rocks upon the cliffs of Santa Cruz Island
Santa Cruz Island is home to some endemic species of animals and plants, including the Santa Cruz Island fox (Urocyon littoralis santacruzae), a subspecies of the island fox.
Introduced and invasive species on Santa Cruz Island include:
Island foxes are indigenous to the island. Roughly the size of housecats, island foxes are unafraid of humans. They can be seen with regularity in most of the campgrounds on Santa Cruz Island. The Santa Cruz Island Fox (Urocyon littoralis santacruzae) is the subspecies of Island Fox native to Santa Cruz Island.
The native plant communities of Santa Cruz Island include chaparral, oak woodland, Bishop pine (Pinus muriacata) forest, grassland and coastal sage scrub. Where sheep grazing was prevalent, the native plant cover has been damaged, and erosion and gullying has been a problem in some areas. The native plant communities are slowly recovering since the removal of feral sheep and pigs.
Bald eagle reintroduction
Santa Cruz Island
Bald eagles were once numerous on California's Channel Islands. Because of eggshell thinning caused by DDT and other factors, successful bald eagle nesting in the northern Channel Islands ended by 1949. By the 1960s, bald eagles could no longer be found on any of the Channel Islands.
As of 2013[update], there were five breeding pairs on Santa Cruz Island, two on Santa Rosa, and one on Anacapa, and a total of over 40 bald eagles on the northern Channel Islands. Between 2002 and 2006, the Channel Islands National Park (in conjunction with partner, Institute for Wildlife Studies) introduced[24] sixty-one young bald eagles to the northern Channel Islands, using a "hacking" process of keeping 8 weeks old eagles in one of two hack towers on Santa Cruz Island, until at age three months, they were ready to fly. On the Channel Islands, where large trees are scarce, bald eagles have built nests on cliff faces, rock shelves and shallow cliffs, as well as in island pines and Torrey pines. One pair even attempted nesting in a grassland on Santa Cruz Island.[24] In 2006, for the first time in over 50 years, a bald eagle hatched on Santa Cruz Island.[25][26]
Because nesting bald eagles can deter golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) from breeding, the recovery of bald eagles on the northern Channel Islands has also helped enable recovery of the endangered island fox. Golden eagle predation had been responsible for the steep decline of island foxes on the northern Channel Islands in the 1990s.[27][28]
Climate
The climate of Santa Cruz Island is marine temperate, with frosts rare and snow almost unknown except very rarely on the highest mountain slopes. Annual rainfall varies from about 16 in (410 mm) on the shoreline, to 25 in (640 mm) on the highest mountain slopes. Precipitation is highly variable from year to year, with wet years alternating with drought years. Most of the rain falls from November to March. Summers are dry, but often overcast and cool with coastal fog.
^Coonan, T.J., C.A. Schwemm and D.K. Garcelon. 2010. Decline and recovery of the island fox: a case study for population recovery. Cambridge University Press, UK
