Santa Catalina Island's history with people dates back 7,000 years ago. Over the years, the island housed Native Americans, Mexicans, miners, Union Soldiers, and the Wrigley family, amongst others. Similarly to its past, Catalina today has mixed uses: 88% serves as the Catalina Island Conservancy and the rest serves as a resort for recreation and tourism.
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| The Conservancy offers eco-tours to educate the public. |
The Catalina Island Conservancy, founded in 1972, aims "to be a responsible steward of [their] lands through a balance of conservation, education, and recreation." [catalinaconservancy.org] With this mission, the Conservancy has become a leader in protecting and restoring endangered habitats and species through preservation programs. The Conservancy land is comprised of 50 miles of beaches and coves, as well as 60 endemic plant, animal, and insect species. This allows for great educational opportunities, which explains why the Catalina Conservancy educates the public about its uniqueness in both a formal classroom setting and an informal outdoor experience. As for its recreational side, the Conservancy allows the public to hike, bike, camp, boat, run and simply enjoy its beautiful landscape. More than one million people including over sixty thousand school children visit these lands each year.
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| The town of Avalon looks like a picturesque resort |
On the remaining portion of the island lies the city of Avalon, the southernmost city in Los Angeles. Avalon remains chiefly a resort town, owned by the Santa Catalina Island Company. The city includes harbors, beaches, a casino, commercial businesses, and a residential area. In 2010, there were 3,728 residents, a 19% growth in a decade. Despite the works of the Conservancy, humans continue to impact the island's biodiversity in a variety of ways, including (but not limited to) pollution and non-native species introduction. The first issue, pollution, has made Avalon Bay an exemplary case study for water contamination over the past decade. This pollution stems from multiple, land-based sources, including street run-off and leaking drains [American Chemical Society]. The pollution has not only ruined the beaches, but also the surrounding marine habitats. Additionally, non-native species continue to endanger native species. For example, domestic cats, probably introduced by European Explorers, created competition for the island fox for resources and eventually excluded the fox from certain shelters. Consequently, the island fox almost went extinct [Institute for Wildlife Studies]. This phenomena is not limited to animal species, however. For instance, the Flax-leaved broom, introduced by the city of Avalon, is slowly gaining establishment on the land [Catalina Island Conservancy]. Conclusively, the growing human population on Catalina has inadvertently affected the ecosystem and wildlife there.
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