On the sere windswept San Benitos Islands, a visitor can stand alone on a seemingly deserted hilltop in a silence broken only by the distant hubbub of sea lions and elephant seals, and know that he is surrounded by literally thousands of wild animals. Storm-petrels, small bat-like seabirds known as omens of approaching squalls to fishermen, congregate by the millions on the San Benitos Islands. But they can only be seen at night.
By day, they either feed at sea — skittering along the water in search of invertebrate prey — or remain in their nest burrows, scrabbled into the loose soil. After nightfall, however, they emerge en masse and their calls begin, a series of otherworldly high-pitched shrieks.
The World's Largest Storm-petrel Breeding Colony
They inundate the airspace, thousands of screeching birds visible in just one sweep of a flashlight. They flutter so thickly that they occasionally collide with one another or the people watching them. Steve Howell, expert birder and author of the Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, estimates that the storm-petrel colony might very well be the single largest in the world, harboring three different species: Leach's, Black and Least.
By contrast, human habitation on the three islands is sparse, but until recently, the same could not be said of the rabbit population. When rabbits were introduced in the 1980s, they began multiplying like, well, like rabbits. By 1998 the herbivores had radically altered the plant species composition of the islands, stripping them of vegetation and causing erosion in prime nest burrow territory. The storm-petrels were, quite literally, being eaten out of house and home.
Other indigenous species, such as the fishhook cactus, yellow tarplant, and the San Benitos Side-blotched Lizard, were also succumbing. Then the nonprofit Island Conservation began work to free the islands of introduced herbivores, a key practice in restoring island ecosystems.
Local Communities Support the Conservation of Marine Resources
Jose Angel Sanchez-Pacheco is a marine biologist who worked closely with local communities on the eradication and now operates tours to San Benitos with Cedros Outdoor Adventures. Describing the islands' restoration in a May 30, 2009 interview, he says, “When we first began working with the fisherman community, they called the storm-petrels ‘nocturnos,’ but many of them didn’t know that the burrows in the ground were the birds’ nests.
“We began by showing the fishermen and their families slide shows, so they could see how grazing devastates these islands. Fifty years ago, no one cared about abalone, but now it is a lucrative fishery. The fishermen knew this, so they listened and responded to the message of protecting what they have for future generations. Now, in little more than 10 years, the island's amazing wildlife has bounced back and is gaining importance as a source of ecotourism income in this region."
Native Species Respond After Exotics Removal
By November of 1999, balance was officially restored to the San Benitos ecosystem — a parenting paradise for endangered marine mammals such as the Guadalupe fur seal and seabirds like the storm-petrels. Regeneration of the islands' native vegetation began immediately, and a small succulent, Dudleya linearis, thought to be extinct, now sprouts all over the West Island, the only place in the world it is known to occur.
Every spring, one of the world's great spectacles — the largest concentration of nesting storm-petrels — is played out year after year in relative obscurity on the remote desert outcrops of San Benitos. With economic incentives for their protection and the removal of invasive species, the islands' future is now all but assured.
Source:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
