[CINC] Anacapa Island

[Catherine French]

Fellow island lovers:

Wednesday, was an amazing weather day on the island. Even with a deeply cloudy sky, we had great viability and Inspiration Point and Cathedral Cove overlook were beautiful. The island is covered in a green quilt from the recent rains. We saw three peregrine falcons diving for prey.

Larry Harris and I went out on a regular citizen science project we are a part of along with Shirley Johnson, John Kuizenga, Polly Blackburn and Kathleen Roos.

We were lucky to have the Ph.D. Steve Schroeter, of UCSB with us who is a long time participant (from an admin standpoint) and has been involved for many years on the urchin settlement brush project at Anacapa Landing. This is a more complex project to explain, but it provides long-term information about the change in the species collected in the brushes and changes to the ocean environment, i.e., changes in temperature, salinity and acidification (or at least the effects there of).

What was remarkable was being on island with Helen Fitting from the NPS and a colleague Chris (don't remember his last name) a Ph.D. candidate at UCSB who gave us a talk about our endemic island slender salamander found only on the northern four islands in the CINP. We also got to see several egg-laying females and their eggs. Helen said she and Chris are working together on a scientific paper, as no one has ever found or seen salamanders with eggs or laying eggs before. It was really a unique and great educational experience.

Aaron from Channel Islands Restoration (CIR) is credited with the first-ever discovery of this amazing animal laying eggs. He discovered them during a restoration day recently on the island. Thank you Aaron. And, thanks to Helen and Chris for letting us in on such a great find. Helen said she will make information on the salamander paper available to David Begun for us when the project comes to fruition.




Calm Seas,
 
Catherine French
Writer, mentor, naturalist
805.570.0432
To own is to have; to share with friends, is to enjoy.

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