[CINC] Regarding sheep on Santa Cruz Island

[whalebear at cs.com]

Regarding the sheep on Santa Cruz Island:   Sheep were probably first introduced on Santa Cruz Island circa 1853 by James Barron Shaw, a Scottish physician then managing the island for Andres Castillero.  Although some of the original breeds are uncertain, they were predominantly Merino and Rambouillet (a French breed derived from and closely related to Spanish Merino) with the probable later addition of Churro and Leicester breeds in smaller quantities.  There were no sheep on the island prior to Shaw; despite folklore to the contrary, there is no documentary evidence that early Spanish (or later English) explorers left domestic livestock anywhere along the Pacific Coast as a possible later emergency food source.  
 
When the island was sold to a ten-person San Francisco-based consortium in 1869, assessor’s records show a sheep population of 12,375 (probably a gross underestimate).  As ranching operations were ramped up, this number grew to an estimated 35,000-40,000.  In 1890, over 50,000 sheep were corralled.
 
Several structures on Santa Cruz Island are related to the sheep-ranching operation.  The sheep-shearing shed at the west end of the Main Ranch was built by the mid 1860s.  The nearby Matanza (slaughterhouse) subsequently used as both a milking barn and horse stable, was built in the 1880s.  The wharf at Prisoners’ Harbor first appeared in photographs in 1869.  It was built in part for shipping of wool and meat (which went as far north as San Francisco and as far south as San Pedro) and was the first substantial wharf in Santa Barbara County.  The two brick structures at Prisoners’ Harbor were built in the 1880s for the storage of wool.
 
Sheep ranching continued throughout the era of Justinian Caire..  In 1925, the island was split into seven parcels.  Five parcels constituting approximately 54,500 acres (90% of the island) was retained by his wife and four of his sons and daughters, while 6,253 acres (10% of the island) went to the families of two disinherited daughters.  Both groups continued sheep ranching  
 
In 1937, the five-parcel portion of the island was purchased by Edwin Stanton, a Los Angeles oilman, for $750,000.  His original intention was to continue raising sheep.  Toward this end he imported and released 10,000 domestic sheep in 1938, hoping to lure the now mostly feral sheep back.  The idea was a total failure and resulted in an increase of 10,000 feral sheep.  In the first several years of his tenure, 35,000 sheep were rounded up and sold.  From 1955-1958, another 24,000 were sold.  The island continued to support a large population of feral sheep.  In 1978, Stanton’s son Carey, by then the owner of the island, made formal provision for the preservation of the island through negotiations with the Nature Conservancy.  The Nature Conservancy, realizing the threat posed by the feral sheep due both to erosion and the eradication of endemic flora, devised plans to remove the sheep by sequential fencing of the island followed by trapping and hunting.  Trapping was never undertaken due to the difficult terrain and the lack of a market for the sheep on the mainland.  In 1981, the Conservancy initiated a program of hunting sheep.  By 1987, over 30,000 sheep had been killed on the western 90% of the island (the eastern 10% of the island, now owned by the Gherini family, descendants of one of the disinherited daughters, was not included in the eradication program).  In 1989 the program was formally declared a success and the hunting ended.  Despite the subsequent sporadic intrusion of the sheep from the eastern end of the island onto Nature Conservancy property, sheep were never again a substantial problem on this portion of the island.  
 
Unfortunately, the Nature Conservancy’s hunting program brought them into conflict with Stanton.  In 1965 Stanton had given a non-exclusive lease to the Santa Cruz Island Hunt Club (one of the principals of which was Richard Lagomarsino, brother of Congressman Robert Lagomarsino) for the hunting of feral sheep and pigs.  The Hunt Club used the Christy Ranch as the base for hunting by gun and a makeshift group of shanties at the east end of Prisoners’ Harbor for bow and arrow hunting.  These operations generated approximately $150,000 annually for Stanton.  The eradication of sheep meant an end to this income and became a source of great tension between Stanton and the Nature Conservancy.  Lawsuits were threatened (although John Gherini, a superb source, states none ever materialized, Superior Court judge Pat McMahon either mediated between factions or presided over an actual lawsuit (personal communication) and Stanton even flirted with the idea of conveying his property to the National Park Service.  Tensions subsequently lessened, but the relationship never regained its prior warmth.  Ironically, the Hunt Club ceased business prior to the eradication of the sheep, due largely to difficulty in finding insurance.
 
Sheep ranching also continued on the eastern end of the island, albeit with diminishing returns.  In 1979, the Gherini family contracted out the sheep ranching; in that year, only 1044 sheep were shorn.  In 1979, 1555 sheep were sold, and in the following year the number jumped to 1884.  In 1984, sheep ranching ceased and a hunt club was started.  The National Park Service, powerless to eradicate the sheep until they acquired the last of the then four undivided parcels that made up the eastern 10% of the island, did so  in 1997.  The remaining sheep were quickly eradicated.  Sheep ranching on Santa Cruz Island had come to an end.  Twelve sheep had been taken off the eastern end of the island in 1988 and a few more in 1991.  Sperm was also collected from some rams.  By the mid-1990s, the mainland population of Santa Cruz Island sheep was 125, although whether these sheep actually represent a distinct breed is open to question.
 
Today there are no sheep on Santa Cruz Island.
 
I hope this answers some of the questions about the sheep.  I have enclosed a brief bibliography below.  Be wary of websites discussing the subject; most contain substantial misinformation.
 
 
References
 
Chiles, Frederic Caire.  Justinian Caire and Santa Cruz Island:  the Rise and Fall of a California Dynasty.  Norman:  Arthur H Clark Company, 2011.
 
Gherini, John.  Santa Cruz Island:  a History of Conflict and Diversity.  Spokane:  Arthur H Clark Company, 1997.
 
Rennie, Charles J III.  Santa Cruz Island:  Selected Topics.  unpublished manuscript.
 
Schuyler, Peter.  Control of Feral Sheep (Ovis aries) on Santa Cruz Island, California.  In Hochberg, F G, ed.  Third California Islands Symposium:  Recent Advances in Research on the California Islands.  Santa Barbara:  Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 1993. 
 
 
 
Chuck Rennie
Adjunct Curator, Marine Mammals
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
 
Medical Director
Channel Islands National Park
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