Eagle Hatches on Santa Cruz

Man, it seems like Santa Cruz Island is in the news all the time these days. It's not like I have a Google alert sending me info about the island, I just keep finding stories about it. Remember, Santa Cruz is one of several islands that make up the Channel Islands off the coast of California, about 20 miles from Ventura, and I've posted about them several times before because, well, they're a great place to go and hang out on a lazy California weekend, and b) the paddling around Santa Cruz itself is superb. The sea caves there offer one of the best paddling experiences around.

But there is also some great wildlife there. First, there are feral pigs. Not as many as there used to be because they just recently hunted many of them down to thin the population, but you know a few hearty souls are still lurking in the bushes. There are seals and porpoises. And, as of recently, there are eaglets. Yes, according to this story, a pair of bald eagles hatched a chick on Santa Cruz on Wednesday for the first time in more than 50 years. Biologists say that the last known successful nesting of a bald eagle on the Channel Islands was in 1949 on Anacapa Island. As most people know  this is a big deal because the widespread use of DDT almost wiped the birds off the California coast in the 60s. So this is good news and very cool.  

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