Upcoming Volunteer Trips to San Nicolas Island

CIR volunteers maintaining the native plantings

that were installed early this year.

CIR, in partnership with the U.S. Navy, has two upcoming multi-day planting trips to San Nicolas Island in January 2016.

CIR will be recruiting a select number of volunteers for the chance to visit the most remote of the Channel Islands, and the hardest for civilians to visit!

The goals for the two restoration trips will be to install 1,000 native plants (which includes two dune species) and replenish the island with native and island-endemic vegetation.

CIR collected seeds on-island and grew the plants in the island nursery that was rebuilt by CIR staff and volunteers in 2012.

CIR nursery manager Kelle Green and volunteers has been tending the native plants in the nursery, and they are almost ready to be planted.

One of the dune species is Beach spectaclepod (

Dithyrea maritima

) a California rare and threatened species. 

Plants growing at the San Nicolas Island nursery including

needle grass, box thorn, and cactus.

Volunteers fly out of Point Mugu Naval Air Station to the island where they will stay in motel housing while working on this important restoration project.

Each volunteer will pay for their own single-occupancy room ($68 per night). Because of holiday flight schedules, the trips are

five and six days in length.

This allows more time for volunteers to enjoy an extraordinary experience and beautiful island views.

CIR staff and volunteers will be kept very busy planting and caring for these precious island plants in the coming months.

Watch for the upcoming volunteer announcements!

Upcoming Volunteer Planting Trips:

Thursday, January 14 – Tuesday, January 19

&

Friday, January 22 – Tuesday, January 26

CIR Expands Work on San Nicolas Island

CIR Expands Work on San Nicolas Island

Plants grown by CIR at the

San Nicolas Island nursery

Channel Islands Restoration will grow at least 3,000 plants on San Nicolas Island in 2014, which will be used to restore habitat for the endangered island night lizard.

We will also return to our ongoing project of removing invasive plants in sensitive habitat occupied by rare native plants.

In 2012, CIR constructed a native plant nursery on the island and grew and planted more than 1,200 plants for an erosion control project on the eastern side of the island.

This year we continued working to eradicate several invasive plants, including Sahara mustard from habitat of

Cryptantha traskiae

, a threatened plant in the Borage family. Sahara mustard is a highly invasive plant that has caused great ecological damage in the deserts.

The U.S. Navy is committed to controlling or even eradicating the mustard from the island and to supporting the recovery of the island night lizard.

CIR donated much of our staff time to the eradication project over the last several years.

The island night lizard, which is found on only three of the Channel Islands, thrives in native plants like prickly pear cactus and boxthorn.

CIR will grow several species in the island nursery that are important to the recovery of the lizard habitat.

The eastern coast of San Nicolas Island with

giant Coreopsis in boom

Volunteers will help remove the invasives and will help with growing the plants.

These projects would not happen without the help of volunteers, but the logistics of taking volunteers to islands owned by the Navy are complicated.

Each volunteer must undergo a background check and obtain a pass before they can enter the Point Mugu Naval Air Station, where we board flights to the island.

Once on the island, volunteers stay at motel-like housing, at the volunteer’s expense.

Although this can add up to nearly $200 per trip, for most volunteers the price is well worth it.

Volunteer opportunities on the Navy islands are rare, and San Nicolas Island is a particularly interesting place to visit.

Volunteers pose while removing Sahara Mustard

from San Nicolas Island

In 2013, CIR made several trips to the island to remove invasive plants.

In addition to the mustard and other invasives, CIR staff and volunteers worked to remove carnation spurge (

Euphorbia terracina

) on the island.

Carnation spurge is quickly spreading in California, and the Navy hopes to eradicate it from San Nicolas Island.

CIR is proud of our partnership with the U.S. Navy on San Nicolas Island.

We also work closely with ACS Habitat Management and the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens on the San Nicolas Island projects.

Although CIR has received funding from the Navy to work on all of these projects, we have also donated many thousands of dollars in staff time when funding has not been available.

CIR volunteers plant natives on San Nicolas Island

Island Fox seen by CIR volunteers on San Nicolas Island

CIR Builds Nursery on San Nicolas Island, grows 1,100 Plants

1,100 plants have been grown at the nursery on

San Nicolas Island so far

Channel Islands Restoration staff and volunteers teamed up with the United States Navy in April on San Nicholas Island to completely rebuild and expand an old native plant nursery.

More than 1,100 plants have been grown so far, and CIR staff and volunteers recently planted most of these at a restoration site on the island.

The nursery, which consisted of a shed and small planting benches, had fallen into disrepair over nearly two decades.

CIR built new benches, erected a shade structure and installed an irrigation system.

The three benches (each forty feet long and six feet wide) include custom designed “biosecurity” measures that prevent introduced pests like Argentine ants from infesting the plant pots.

The nursery shed required major cleaning, and it will soon receive repairs to its roof and doors.

Funding to build the new nursery and to grow the plants has been provided by the Navy.

The nursery has an automated irrigation system, so CIR staff only needs to visit the island approximately once per week. 

The plants were installed at a restoration site on the eastern side of the island to help prevent erosion along roadside dune habitat.

More plants will be grown in the nursery to revegetate sites impacted by upcoming construction projects on the island.

CIR Board Member Gordon Hart designed the nursery and led the construction project along with volunteers Dave Edwards (also a Board Member) Don Mills and John Reyes.

The plants were grown by Norma Hogan, who recently joined the CIR team.

CIR built the nursery in partnership with the Navy,

and most of these plants have been installed at a restoration site on the island.

CIR has been working on the island for several years eradicating Sahara mustard from habitat of the threatened

Cryptantha traskiae

(a threatened plant in the Borage family).

Sahara mustard is a highly invasive plant that has caused great ecological damage in the deserts.

It has spread quickly on San Nicolas Island, and the Navy staff is committed to eradicating it from the island.

CIR has donated the staff time on this project for several years, but the Navy has recently contracted with CIR to perform this service.

Our staff and volunteers are trusted to work around these sensitive plants and around protected archeological sites.

CIR greatly values our relationship with Naval Base Ventura County and the U.S. Navy as a whole.

CIR Board member Gordon Hart

builds benches in the new nursery constructed by CIR on San Nicolas Island

shade structure under construction

CIR staff and volunteers plant natives at the Thousand Springs restoration site on the north east end of San Nicolas Island.

volunteer John Reyes (left) and CIR nursery manager Norma Hogan (right) in front of the completed shade structure

CIR volunteers plant natives at the Thousand Springs restoration site on the north east end of San Nicolas Island.

Busy Spring for CIR

Channel Islands Restoration has been kept very busy this spring:

MAINLAND PROJECTS:

We are working with our project partners on two restoration sites on the San Marcos Foothills with funding from the Goleta Valley Land Trust.  We've plant several thousand plants at both locations and made war on some very tenacious invasive weeds.  To see some details on both of the projects (including lots of photos) check out the following links:

San Marcos Foothills Atascadero Creek Restoration Project

San Marcos Foothills Cieneguitas Creek Restoration Project

We finished up the iceplant removal project at Carpinteria State Beach, in partnership with South Coast Habitat Restoration and the Southern California Wetland Recovery Project.  We "solarized" the iceplant (killed it without the use of herbicide) and planting nearly 3000 native plants.  If you have not visited this site at the Mouth of Carpinteria Creek, we highly recommend that you check it out!  For more information including some photos detailing our work, follow this link:

Carpinteria State Beach Iceplant Removal and Native Species Re-vegetation

Our project at the Santa Barbara Zoo along the Andree Clark Bird Refuge has been a wonderful success!  This project is also funded by the Southern California Wetland Recovery Project, and it has involved removing Myoporum trees (and other invasives) and planting of several hundred natives.  We put up some amazing "before and after" photos on our web page which you can check out at this link:

Andree Clark Bird Refuge/ SB Zoo Invasive Plant Eradication and Re-vegetation

CIR continues to work on a major dune restoration project along Harbor Blvd. in Oxnard.  We are working with Arcadis US. on the North Shore/McGrath project, which is large is scope.  We control invasives at the site and have helped install plantings.  We have posted photos of the project here:

McGrath/North Shore Dune and Wetland Restoration

CIR has partnered with Bio Resource Consultants to restore 3.25 acres of habitat, including approximately 2 acres of giant reed (

Arundo donax)

and 1.25 acres of disturbed southern willow scrub on the Santa Clara River near Santa Paula.  The goal of the project is to create and restore/enhance riparian habitat to increase wildlife diversity, including creation and/or enhancement of southwestern pond turtle habitat.  This project is meant to mitigate impacts of the City's new waste water treatment facility.   Work began in late spring of 2011.

CHANNEL ISLANDS PROJECTS:

On the islands, CIR took nine elementary school classes to Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands to learn about conservation ecology and to help with invasive plant removal.  We did this with funding from several grant sources and we plan some more trips this fall.  Holy Cross School in Ventura contracted with us to take them on a four day volunteer trip to the Nature Conservancy side of Santa Cruz Island.

We led several volunteer trips for adults to Anacapa Island as part of a program we have with Channel Islands National Park to restore the native plant communities of that island.  The island nursery is now up and running, and volunteers are now helping to grow plants for the project.  Check out some photos of this project here:

East Anacapa Island Restoration Project

CIR is helping the U.S. Navy in a program to eradicate Sahara Mustard on San Nicolas Island.  We would love to provide volunteer trips there in the future, and also to San Clemente island, perhaps as early as this fall.  Stay tuned!!

Some photos of recent trips to San Nicolas and San Clemente can be found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cirlogin