| Santa Rosa Island, California |
Article Index for Santa Rosa |
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Information AboutSanta Rosa Island, California |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT SANTA ROSA ISLAND, CALIFORNIA | |
| channel islands of california | |
| archaeological sites in california | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Santa Rosa Island is the second largest of the Channel Islands Of California at 52,794 acres (213.65 km²). It is part of Channel Islands National Park . Santa Rosa is located about 26 miles (42 km) off the coast of Santa Barbara, California in Santa Barbara County . It is occupied by rolling hills, deep canyons, a coastal lagoon and beaches adorned with sand dunes and Driftwood . The Chumash , an American Indian people who lived in the Channel Islands at the time of European contact, called the Driftwood ''wima'' because channel currents brought ashore logs from which they built '' Tomol s'' (plank canoes). HISTORY During the Last Ice Age it, and the other three northern Channel Islands, were conjoined into Santa Rosae , a single island that was only five miles (8 km) off the coast. Archeologists have discovered the remains of 13,000 year-old Arlington Springs Woman , among the oldest human remains in the Americas, on Santa Rosa Island. Pygmy Mammoth s (''Mammuthus exilis'') have also been excavated there. Its previous owner, Vail & Vickers of Santa Barbara, had owned the island since 1902 and sold it to the U.S. federal government for $30 million in 1986 . The last domestic cattle were shipped off the island in 1998. The National Park Service will permit the former landowners to retain non-native Kaibab Mule Deer and Roosevelt Elk on the island until 2011. WILDLIFE A variety of the Torrey Pine (''Pinus torreyana'' var. ''insularis'') grows exclusively on the island. If it were considered as a separate species, it could have once been one of the rarest pine in the world. However, the population has grown from about 100 trees in the early 20th century to over 2000 trees today. The Island Oak (''Quercus tomentella'') is native to the island. Flightless geese, giant mice and Pygmy Mammoth s are extinct, while the Island Fox , Spotted Skunk , and Munchkin Duleya (one of the six endemic plant species on the island) still live there. Its surrounding waters serve as an invaluable nursery for the sea life that feeds larger marine mammals and seabirds. EXTERNAL LINKS
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