Catalina Island Conservancy

"[1] In April 2019, the Conservancy opened a new base of operations, the Trailhead, at 708 Crescent Ave. in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island.

In addition to providing information about recreation opportunities on the Island, hiking and biking permits, and serving as the launch point for Conservancy Eco Tours and Wildlands Express shuttles, the Trailhead has educational exhibits and a shop.

Three species of highly invasive plants have been nearly eradicated from the island: tamarisk, pampas grass and fig.

The plan combined relocation, vaccinations, captive breeding and release, and wild fox population monitoring.

[7] Due to this outbreak The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Catalina Island fox an endangered sub-species in 2004.

After 15 years of work by wildlife biologists, the Conservancy announced that the Catalina Island adult fox population had rebounded to pre-crash numbers.

[8] The Conservancy's biologists counted 1,850 foxes on the island, 350 more than the year before, in one of the fastest recoveries ever of an endangered species.

[9] The Conservancy has worked with the Institute for Wildlife Studies in a successful program that brought bald eagles back to Catalina and the other Channel Islands after DDT contamination decimated their numbers.

To control the herd's size, the Conservancy had been periodically conducting roundups and shipping bison to the mainland.

Beginning in 2009, the Conservancy's scientists injected the female bison with porcine zona pellucida (PZP), a contraceptive that had been used for fertility control in zoos, wild horses and white tail deer.

[12] In addition to substantially reducing the number of new calves, the PZP had no apparent effect on pregnant females or their offspring.

The Conservancy's scientists, and their collaborators at California State University, Fullerton, continue to study PZP to determine if the female bison can regain their fertility[14] after a period of time without the contraceptive.

After consulting with wildlife experts, capturing and sterilization were eliminated as options, and a culling (killing from helicopters) approach was adopted.

The Wrigley Memorial & Botanic Garden offers visitors a living exhibition of the plant life on the island.