The Isle Of Fabled Beasts

This is for the set of posts on Islands and Place for the Ecotone wiki.

Almost every day during my eight-year sojourn in Santa Barbara, I would glance seaward at Santa Cruz Island, about twenty miles off the coast. From our perch at about 1200’ elevation in the Santa Ynez mountains behind the town, the view reminded me of looking west across San Francisco Bay to the ridges of Marin and the Peninsula, especially when the fog was in. The island is mountainous with a 2600’ high ridge, similar to the ridges on the western side of the Bay where I grew up.

Despite its proximity I only visited the island several times. I think in all cases the occasion was a birding trip to look for the Island Scrub Jay, an endemic species found only on Santa Cruz Island. Biogeographers delight in islands for their evolutionary treasures, and the Channel Islands off California provide much material. There are many species and subspecies of plants and animals endemic to the Channel Islands. The scrub jay, the Catalina ironwood, the island kit fox, and lots of others.

In the Pleistocene, when sea level was lower and the Northern Channel Islands were connected to each other, there were even pygmy mammoths there, horse-sized creatures four to eight feet tall. It is believed they could swim between the island and the mainland.

Who’s to say magical islands don’t still exist?.