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Falcon chicks hatch on island
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More from EnvironmentFor the first time in 50 years, peregrine falcon chicks have hatched on Santa Barbara Island.
A biologist hoping to recover an unhatched egg to test it for chemical contamination made the discovery late last month on the island, 55 miles off the Ventura County coast.
"Imagine my surprise," said Brian Latta of the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Group, "to find two recently hatched young and another beginning to hatch."
This was the first documented breeding success on the smallest island of Channel Islands National Park since 1940.
The bird of prey had disappeared from the island in the mid-1950s after the now-banned insecticide DDT caused the peregrine and other marine birds to lay thin-shelled eggs that broke during incubation.
Although a mating pair of the raptors was established on the island in 1995, there had been no sightings of hatchlings until Latta's discovery.
"As top predators of their food chain, peregrine falcons are also an excellent indicator species of the overall health of the ecosystem in which they live," said Greg Baker, program manager with Montrose Settlements Restoration Program, an organization trying to restore species injured by exposure to DDT and other toxins.
In the past few years, chicks have hatched on Santa Rosa and San Miguel islands in Channel Islands National Park.
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