Putting Jobs in a Museum



Santa Rosa Island, California is now a museum.
During boom times there were as many as 8,000 cattle on the island. The cows were brought to the island in the winter and fattened up on grass until two spring later, when they were rounded up and sent back to the mainland.


Ranching since 1844
Environmentalists and the government have just ended quaint "old fashioned" jobs like ranching and banned hunting

• Cattle ranching is banned by order of Environmentalists
• Elk and deer herds on the island since 1909 have been exterminated by order of Environmentalists in order to make the island "pure" and "natural."
• Hunting is in effect banned because everything a hunter could hunt has been permanently exterminated.

Jobs.  Who needs jobs?  Food production.  Who needs food production?  After all food comes from supermarkets.

So ranching jobs and food production are now banned on Santa Rosa Island, California by radical Environmentalists.  The island is now a park . . . a museum if you will.  The very, very few visitors who will ever visit this remote island will be able to read the museum brochure about the olden days when there were cowboys, cattle, hunters, jobs and food production.

For 25 years he has known Jan. 1, 2012, was coming — the day his family, the Vails, will no longer live on Santa Rosa Island and Channel Islands National Park will take control of it. The Park Service bought the roughly 83-square-mile island 26 miles off the Santa Barbara coast in 1986.

But the Vail & Vickers operation was allowed to remain on the ranch. Through environmentalist lawsuits the cattle ranching was phased out, and the deer and elk are being permanently exterminated, reports the Ventura County Star.

These days, the families are moving on, too, packing up memories and heirlooms and looking around their home one last time.

"It's a sad time," said Nita Vail, 54, who spent much of her childhood on the island. Her dad managed the cattle that would come from the mainland in the winter and leave fattened up two springs later.

"We were raised with this incredible love of the land and the island and taking care of it," she said. "It is very bittersweet."

This is no mere piece of property leaving a family. It is an island where four generations of Vails — as well as countless cowboys and cooks, hunters and explorers — lived while raising cattle and families, hunting elk and forming memories of a place as special to them as it is unique in the United States.

Across from the main ranch house — built in 1855 and believed to be the oldest wood home in Santa Barbara County — innocuous graffiti has become part of history. Upstairs from the tack room, Henry Lopez scribbled his name on the wood wall, along with the date Oct. 31, 1896. The otherwise anonymous cowboy is now as much a part of the island's history as are the cracked leather saddles and bridles that now collect dust and cobwebs in the barn.

Ranchers have been on the island since 1844, including a sheep operation that supplied wool for Civil War uniforms.

The island Elk were slaughtered by order of Environmentalist fanatics.
Elk were brought to the island in 1909 and thrived because of the lack of predators and good conditions.  Now with the elk and deer herds exterminated, hunters will no longer be allowed on the island because there will be nothing left to hunt . . . but the grass will be natural!



Strong Arm Big Government and Anti-Hunter

When Congress created Channel Islands National Park in 1980, the Vails and Vickerses requested Santa Rosa be excluded. But Tim Vail said his parents' generation felt if they didn't voluntarily sell, they would eventually be forced to sell through condemnation or other means.

"We fought as long as was reasonable, but you can't fight the government," he said.

In 1996, the National Parks Conservation Association sued the Park Service, claiming, among other things, that the hunting and ranching operations were damaging the island's endangered species. A 1998 settlement among the three parties mandated the ranching operations terminate that year, while the deer and elk could remain until the end of 2011.

Since 2008, 25 percent of the deer and elk have been culled annually by trophy hunters who flew in from all over the country and meat hunters who live across the channel. The commercial hunt stopped in October, and professional hunters are now killing the remaining animals.  The man who ran the hunting trips didn't want to see the animals go to waste, so 7,000 pounds of meat was donated to the Ventura County Rescue Mission.

No hunters will now be allowed on the island because the environmentalists have made sure all the elk have be exterminated.

It was never in the original sale agreement to allow cattle, elk or deer to remain on the island after 2012. Beyond the challenges of maintaining the herds, the entire point of Channel Islands National Park is to preserve the natural resources, and the cattle and game don't meet that criteria.


First cousins Nita Vail and Will Woolley look out over a Bechers Bay and their former ranch on Santa Rosa Island. Vail and Woolley spent most of their childhood on the island.



The cattle of Santa Rosa Island used to feed the people of America . . . but no more.  We don't need ranches.  After all food comes from supermarkets.



An aerial view of the Vail & Vickers Ranch on Santa Rosa Island. Channel Islands National Park will take complete control of the island on Jan. 1. The Vail & Vickers operation, which has been on the island since 1901, will have to leave by then.


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