The southernmost of California's Channel Islands is home to several threatened species, and a Navy bombing range.
On the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has removed four plants and a bird unique to San Clemente Island from protected status. KPBS Military Reporter Andrew Dyer has this report.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday announced one bird and four plant species — unique to the island — would be delisted from protected status under the Endangered Species Act, a milestone the service is touting as the start of a year-long celebration of the law's 50th anniversary.The San Clemente Island Bell's sparrow, a small brown bird with a fluffy white breast, is being removed from protected status.
"On this island alone there are 17 plant species that are found nowhere else in the world," said Brian Munson, the botany program manager at Naval Base Coronado."When a seed or something from the mainland comes out here, it encounters new conditions. And it'll evolve into something new, and that's what's happened numbers of times on this island.
The Endangered Species Act — signed into law in 1973 — established regulations the Navy had to follow to manage the island's natural resources. Several island plant and animal species were listed as endangered in the 1970s, forcing the Navy to not only mitigate its impact on those surviving species but work to recover them as well.
Melissa Booker, a Navy wildlife biologist overseeing recovery on the island, said the impact of military activity on the island can and has been mitigated — even in the areas receiving fire from warships.
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