About San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island is the most remote of California's Channel Islands, located 61 miles from the nearest point on the mainland coast. It is part of Ventura County. The island has been home to Native American tribes since at least 5000 BC, and was visited by the Spanish missionaries in 1769.
The island was used as a military base during World War II and was abandoned after the war ended. It wasn't until 1969 that a public access program started allowing visitors to come to San Nicolas Island, and even then it wasn't an easy trip: you had to take a boat or helicopter to get there! Today, the 14,562 acre (22.753 sq mi) island is controlled by the United States Navy with limited access and is used as a weapons testing and training facility, served by Naval Outlying Field San Nicolas Island.
Our Work On San Nicolas Island
Channel Islands Restoration has been, and is working with the U.S. Navy on numerous restoration projects throughout San Nicolas Island.
Our staff and volunteers have teamed up with the navy to completely rebuild and expand an old native plant nursery.
CIR is working to eradicate several invasive species on San Nicloas. We have been working for several years eradicating Sahara mustard from habitat of Cryptantha traskiae (a threatened plant in the Borage family). Our staff and volunteers are trusted to work around these sensitive plants and around protected archeological sites.
Elsewhere, CIR crews have worked to restore San Nicolas Night Lizard (Xantusia riversiana riversiana) habitat with extensive plantings of prickly pear cactus (Opuntia littoralis). With the help of this added shelter-providing habitat, night lizard populations have begun to increase.
Planting Thorny Natives on San Nicolas Island
To date, Channel Islands Restoration has installed 2600 nursery-grown native plants on San Nicolas Island with several thousand more to go! We’ve worked to provide plants that would augment habitat for the Island Night Lizard.
This species is endemic to only three of the eight Channel Islands. The lizard was recently removed from the endangered species list because of conservation efforts led by the Navy on San Nicolas and San Clemente Islands, and by the Park Service on Santa Barbara Island.
Navy staff on San Nicolas have designed a project to enhance the habitat of the lizard by planting species the lizard is known to favor. This includes California box thorn and two species of native cactus. In the wild, these thorny plants grow in impenetrable thickets that protect lizards from predators. The plantings have also been designed to help control erosion.
Volunteers wore heavy leather gloves and handled these thorny species mindfully, using hand tools such as tongs to gently position the cactus. CIR propagated these native plants from seed in the island nursery that was rebuilt by CIR staff and volunteers in 2012. Our latest round of plant propagation was performed under contract with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and a Navy contractor.
CIR nursery manager Sheri Mayta and our dedicated SNI field team of volunteers including: Carol Gravelle, Doreen Jones, and Dennis Kulzer have been tending the nursery and watching over the plants as they matured. Now that they are being planted in lizard habitat, our field team has expanded to include Kelle Green and Jon Huber, and will help to keep them watered and weeded as they become established. CIR staff and volunteers will be kept busy planting and caring for these precious island plants in the coming months.
Watch for upcoming volunteer announcements!
CIR Grew More Than 11,000 Plants on San Nicolas Island
In the past few months, CIR volunteers have been hard at work on San Nicolas Island and have installed more than 12,000 plants. After removing patches of invasive ice plant, the volunteers installed and have been maintaining native plants to stabilize sand dunes on San Nicolas Island with resounding success. Plants were grown in our San Nicolas Island Nursery built last year.
We also have been working to restore upland habitat for the threatened island night lizard and are currently in the process of growing additional plants for this project in our San Nicolas Island plant nursery that we will install in the coming months.
We are incredibly proud of the plants that we have been able to produce from the nursery, especially a newly discovered plant, just last year, Lycium brevipes 'desert box thorn'. It was thought that this particular species was long extinct on San Nicolas Island. We were able to collect cuttings last fall from a population on 10 plants. These cuttings were propagated and planted in the landscape around the nursery. The plants were placed on a drip system. This planting has been so successful that we have been able to collect more cuttings from these plants and start an additional 400 new little clones. These new plants will be planted out this coming fall/winter creating more habitat for island critters such as the endemic night lizard.
Besides box thorn we are growing cactus, buckwheat, mule fat, morning glory and a whole palate of native bunch grasses. We are very glad we are afforded the opportunity to be part of the habitat restoration for San Nicolas.
Recently we have improved the nursery with fantastic flood tables, capable of propagating plants with high water demands - like those near marshes or in riparian habitat - with very little water waste.
Each table has its own dedicated waterline and can be manually watered or set on a timer. This is all possible because of great, dedicated volunteers.
Trips to San Nicolas Island fill incredibly quickly and spots are coveted. Because of the demanding and high priority nature of our work with the US Navy on San Nicolas Island, CIR mostly seeks volunteers that we have worked with in the past on this or other projects, so that we can work with teams of known quality during our short trips to the island.
Voluntourism Restoration Project on San Nicolas Island
by Gudrun Kleist
In the winter of 2018, Channel Islands Restoration installed over 11,000 plants on San Nicolas Island over the course of 50 trips to the island, with the help of 337 volunteers. Gudrun joined us as one of those volunteers and wrote up her experience for the newsletter of her local chapter of the California Native Plant Society.
From April 12-16, nine Bay Area volunteers spent an unforgettable five days on San Nicolas Island (SNI), one of the eight Channel Islands. At Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station, we were greeted by CIR’s Project Manager Kevin Thompson and Nursery Manager Kelle Green. We were joined by long-time CIR volunteer Robin Birney. Robin had been to the island on many occasions and was very helpful in getting us situated.
After a short flight, we arrived on SNI, checked into our comfortable rooms at the hotel in “Nictown” and were ready to go to work by 10am. Our objective was to plant many of the 11,000 plants grown specifically to re-vegetate a 3-mile stretch along a road that had been severely impacted by a pipeline project as well as by overgrazing. All the plants had been grown in the nursery from seeds and cuttings collected exclusively from the island by CIR’s Nursery Manager Kelle Green and her crew. Cuttings were collected from as many different populations as possible and interplanted to ensure biodiversity among their offspring.
The nursery itself was impressive: long benches covered with many different types of plants from grasses to cactus, an automated watering system, and ant moats on all legs, to prevent introduced pests like Argentine ants from infesting the pots and being spread beyond Nictown.
Adjacent to the nursery is a garden, where Kelle is growing many plants to be used for future propagation. She is especially proud of her healthy little forest of Lycium brevipes (desert boxthorn). In the fall of 2015, cuttings were collected from 10 plants and propagated. They thrived and from these plants, 400 more were grown to be planted for this project.
On our arrival, we were greeted by gale force winds of 40 miles with gusts up to 50 miles, which made the job on our first day difficult. We were issued goggles to keep the sand out of our eyes and we wore most of our clothing layers. Holes needed to be dug (chiseled) deep enough for the top of the root ball to be at least 1.0”-1.5” below grade (deeper is better said Kevin). This helps to prevent the incessant winds from blowing away the soil and exposing the roots and creates a nice bowl to contain the irrigation water.
We saw our first island fox (Urocyon littoralis) that is endemic to all but the two smallest Channel Islands (Anacapa and Santa Barbara). With its expressive face, long bushy tail and weighing only 5 lbs. it is adorably cute. During our stay, we saw several more cute little foxes in their natural environment.
By the next morning the wind had died down to a comfortable breeze, a meadowlark was providing background music with his sweet song and Kevin was using an auger to help dig the holes. We greatly benefited from Kevin and Kelle’s extensive knowledge and organizational skills. We learned to use a simple but effective jig to mark the placement of the planting holes with the first row set back from the road about 8 - 10 feet. The first couple of rows were short plants like grasses and Achillea millefolium that can tolerate the occasional tire or being mowed. This will also allow for better visibility of the foxes; their greatest threat on the island is being hit by a vehicle.
Thorny plants like cactus and boxthorn were planted in the back rows. These are the preferred habitat of the Island Night Lizard (Xantusia riversiana), another cute island native. This species is endemic to only three islands (SNI, San Clemente, and Santa Barbara) and was recently delisted. We were able to see one up close and personal when SNI’s Natural Resources Manager William Hoyer showed us one he was preparing to relocate from Nictown to a more natural environment. We also learned the reason for the BBQ tongs in the toolbox - they make planting a cactus a cinch.
n 4 1/2 days, and together with CIR’s Kevin, Kelle and Robin, we managed to plant almost 1,700 plants including: Achillea millefolium (yarrow), Artemisia nesiotica (Island sagebrush), Chenopodium californicum (California goosefoot), Distichlis spicata (saltgrass), Eriogonum grande var. (San Nicolas Island buckwheat), Frankenia salina (alkali seaheath), Lotus argophyllus var. argenteus (Southern Island silver lotus), Lupinus albifrons (silver lupine), Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. californicum (California meadow barley), Lycium brevipes (desert boxthorn), Lycium californicum (California boxthorn), Opuntia spp. (coastal prickly pear), Stipa cernua (nodding needlegrass), and Stipa pulchra (purple needlegrass).
As a desert island SNI gets an average of only 7” of rain a year; these plants would not survive without additional water. Thankfully, there are fire hydrants at regular intervals along the roads. Our last job was installing a drip system, one dripper for each planting hole. The drip system is hooked up manually to a fire hydrant and run for 45 minutes to an hour, first every 2 weeks and then at longer and longer intervals until the rains (hopefully) start. All the fresh water to the island is supplied by a surprisingly small reverse osmosis desalination plant.
One plant that recovered remarkably well from decades of uncontrolled sheep grazing is Leptosyne gigantea (giant coreopsis). Many areas of the island are covered in a miniature forest of these “Dr. Seuss” plants. Robin told us that flying in after a wet winter the whole island was yellow. Their main bloom season is February, but there was one late bloomer right by the road looking like a big cheery sunflower bouquet. It made us smile every time we drove by.
However, our time on SNI was not only work. We were given tours every late afternoon to see different parts of the island. SNI has one of the largest breeding colonies of northern elephant seals in California with 20,000 animals crowding the beaches in winter. Kevin told us that during the height of the breeding season there is not a spot of sand visible. The bulls and the newly pregnant females had already left for their northern feeding grounds, but there were still plenty of younger seals on several beaches, including the aptly named Bachelor Beach. A few sea lions mingled with the elephant seals.
We saw several examples of CIR restoration projects, including an impressive dune planting. A gully at the edge of Nictown had been planted a year ago with similar plants we were planting. It was amazing to see how much these plants had grown in just one year. We hope ours will look as happy in another year. What a contrast to the landscape at the South side of the island: a badland with deep gullies severely eroded from decades of overgrazing. On our last day, we had the opportunity to spend time at Rock Crusher at the West end of SNI. Here the crashing waves had eroded away the softer rocks leaving columns of dark rocks, creating an almost alien landscape.
We left on the afternoon plane just as the wind was picking up again. We were tired and sore, but also very thankful for the opportunity for such an enlightening experience.
We learned so much from Kevin and Kelle about the flora and fauna of the island and about restoring a badly damaged desert island. It was a privilege to work alongside such dedicated people as Kevin, Kelle, and Robin. Most important, we had a small part in helping create habitat for those cute island critters.
Reprinted with permission from the June 2018 issue of the Bay Leaf, the newsletter of the East Bay Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (www.ebcnps.org).