Channel Islands National Park

These are wonderful times to be an island fox. A decade ago, the house-cat-sized animals were scampering toward extinction, with only a few dozen surviving at spots scattered around Channel Islands National Park. Now they're practically poster mammals for species revival, numerous enough that government scientists no longer have to breed them in the safety of chain-link pens.

A proposal that would allow continued big-game hunting in Channel Islands National Park appears doomed, to the delight of park supporters and the dismay of its chief backer. The controversial plan by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) was scuttled by a measure tucked into the half-trillion-dollar spending bill approved this week by the House of Representatives. The massive bill has yet to clear the Senate, but its approval there is expected.

Ventura County supervisors Tuesday roundly criticized a California congressman's attempt to designate Santa Rosa Island as a recreational hunting ground for the military and voted unanimously to oppose any future attempts to remove the island from the National Park Service. Although Rep.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is reviving a controversial proposal to allow members of the military to hunt deer and elk on a national park island off the Ventura County coast. Opponents fear that the plan could limit public access to Channel Islands National Park and threaten native species. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) had backed off his plan to allow military hunting on 53,000-acre Santa Rosa Island after objections from senators last year.

The newest bald eagles now living at Channel Islands National Park were transported there by plane and boat, in a disorienting journey that took them far away from their Northern California birthplace. But in bringing them to their new home on Santa Cruz Island this week, biologists said such long trips may no longer be necessary. This is the fifth and last season of releasing the birds, they said.

DUNCAN HUNTER, the Republican congressman representing El Cajon, Calif., is not one to let his ignorance get in the way of making major federal legislation. Take, just as one example, Santa Rosa Island. Driving along the California coast one day with a carload of Marines, Hunter had a brainstorm.

A controversial plan to turn an island in the Channel Islands National Park off the Southern California coast into a hunting reserve for veterans cleared an important hurdle Friday, as congressional leaders agreed to insert the item into a crucial defense bill. In a striking illustration of the power of a committee chairman, Rep.

Re "Island Hunting Plan Misses Target," Aug. 3 The proposal by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) for a military hunting preserve is a selfish land grab for hunters like himself who want a pristine and publicly isolated area for their personal hunts. His use of the emotionally charged issue of disabled American veterans is nothing more than camouflage to attain that goal. If he is truly sincere about helping disabled vets who want to hunt, then he should propose setting aside some of the thousands of acres of federal forest that are for sale and create a refuge with the proper facilities that could accommodate disabled veterans' needs.

Authorities have found the body of a 43-year-old San Diego man who disappeared while surfing with friends off Santa Cruz Island. John M. Wagner was found dead in the water about 20 miles south of Ventura Harbor on Friday, the Ventura County coroner's office said. While surfing a break on the island with friends, Wagner went underwater for unknown reasons about 5 p.m., according to a Coast Guard official. The island is part of the Channel Islands National Park, and it was park rangers who found his body.

You could say Kerry Knudsen took a lichen to our new president. Knudsen, a curator of the plant-like combination of fungi and algae at the UC Riverside Herbarium, named a new species of tough, orange-colored lichen, Caloplaca obamae, after Barack Obama. "I supported him running for president, and while we were doing the collecting, the election was in its last couple of weeks," Knudsen, 58, said Thursday. "It was real suspense, so we were talking about that every day." Coincidentally, the final peer review of the paper came back on Inauguration Day, and Knudsen finished the revisions while watching the event on television, sealing the deal.