The idea of setting aside large tracts of land as part of a public system for recreation and preservation of natural resources was first put into practice more than a century ago in the American West. Although several agencies have charges related to the management of federal lands, the National Park Service is the most visible. Institutions whose mission includes preservation or conservation of natural resources face particular challenges in carrying out their task, often in spite of efforts to exploit resources in their charge for commercial or private purposes. As of 2010, the National Park Service managed 392 areas of natural, historic or recreational significance, 58 of which have been designated as National Parks. These sites were created and maintained, often in spite of political forces (described in the quotation above) that favor potentially lucrative private uses over protection of land through public ownership and stewardship. Events both leading to and following the establishment of Channel Islands National Park illustrate this tension between private use and public preservation of unique pieces of the American landscape.

Eight islands located off the coast of southern California are known collectively as the Channel Islands. The establishment of a national park containing these islands was first officially recommended by a government survey in 1933, yet legislation establishing Channel Islands National Park (CINP) was not signed into law until 1980. Disputes over acquisition of privately owned land lasted an additional seventeen years, and controversies surrounding the continuation of private commercial hunting within the park boundaries continue to this day. This study explores the conditions that permitted successful passage of PL 96-199, which created the fortieth national park, and why enactment of that legislation did not guarantee a smooth and seamless integration of all five islands within the park boundaries.

The factors that allowed supporters of Channel Islands National Park to overcome the inherent political obstacles to preservation make the history of this park a case worthy of detailed examination. The history of the park offers opportunities to observe and better understand the forces that have an impact on the creation, development, and challenges associated with the unique units of the national park system. This case study highlights the central role that individual policy entrepreneurs play in shaping the course of units within that system.

NATIONAL PARKS AS POLITICAL ENTITIES

The establishment of a unit of the National Park Service system has always been a political decision.Footnote ¹ The first national park, Yellowstone, was created by an Act of Congress in 1872 largely at the behest of a group of influential individuals who visited the remote area and wanted to protect the natural beauty from private encroachment. While several of the early parks were created or developed with the support of interests such as railroads, which saw parks as a means to increase tourist traffic, since that time many efforts to establish or expand parks have met significant resistance and opposition primarily from local and regional interests. In cases such as Grand Teton and Kenai Fjords, local opposition centered on the loss of control and threats to existing land uses.Footnote ² In 1906, Congress gave the president the power to create national monuments, which would be protected from private development and removal of artifacts through the Antiquities Act, a power that has frequently generated political controversy when used.Footnote ³ Since the creation of the first national park, decisions about the establishment of individual parks (as well as NPS units bearing other designations such as National Historic Sites or National Recreation Areas) have been guided by congressional impetus. Despite efforts, such as those of Park Service directors Conrad L. Wirth and George B. Hartzog Jr., to plan for expansions of the system, and broad efforts by groups or coalitions to preserve parkland or wilderness, the history of most individual national parks in American points to the necessity of a persistent and effective policy entrepreneur to serve as an advocate for creation of new park units. Although the 1998 National Parks Omnibus Management Act established a process for identifying and authorizing new units that relies on the NPS to study new park proposals using formal criteria (National Park Service, 2007), in reality the decision to create a park is still a political one.Footnote ⁴

Unlike broad federal policy legislation, the creation of each national park requires Congress to adopt specific enabling legislation. Although there are various analytical frameworks that can be employed to understand policy outcomes, in this case (and perhaps with most national parks) the concept that key individuals serve as critical agents of policy change is particularly useful. Kingdon describes these individuals as “policy entrepreneurs” who are defined by their “willingness to invest their resources—time, energy, reputation, and sometimes money—in the hope of a future return” (Kingdon, 122). According to Kingdon, entrepreneurs have three qualities that contribute to their success: they have a claim to be heard based on expertise, position, or ability to speak for others; they have political connections or negotiating skill; and they have persistence (Kingdon, 180–81). The entrepreneurs who played key roles in the creation and development of Channel Islands National Park displayed each of these characteristics in pursuit of their goals. They were able to articulate their policy alternatives and skillfully manage their way through the political process. The examination of this case highlights the importance of persistence, since as Kingdon observed, “The long softening-up process is critical to policy change. Opportunities for serious hearings … pass quickly and are missed if the proposals have not already gone through the long gestation process before the window opens. The work of floating and refining proposals is not wasted if it does not bear fruit in the short run. Indeed it is critical if the proposal is to be heard at the right time” (Kingdon Reference Kingdon1995, 201). The role of several such entrepreneurs is critical to understanding the history of Channel Islands National Park.

It may be useful to consider Kingdon’s concept of process streams to understand the conditions under which entrepreneurs may advance their policy goals. The question of why some ideas make their way onto the policy agenda and ultimately are implemented, while others do not, is the focus of Kingdon’s classic work, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. While Kingdon’s work is not predictive of outcomes, it may be a useful tool to gain an understanding of the conditions that permit entrepreneurs to successfully convert their ideas into policy (in this case the creation and development of a national park). In Kingdon’s work, three process streams are identified (problems, policies, and politics). The problem stream includes those issues that policymakers want to address. The policy stream consists of various policy alternatives, often cultivated and refined over time by policy entrepreneurs. The political stream is comprised of the public mood, changes in Congress or administration, ideological shifts that influence and shape the overall environment in which policies are considered. When these come together, the opportunity exists for significant policy change. The idea of process streams is important to this study because, according to Kingdon, entrepreneurs “perform the function for the system of coupling the previously separate streams. They hook solutions to problems, proposals to political momentum, and political events to policy problems” (183). As has been the case throughout the history of national parks in the United States, where key figures played pivotal roles in creating and developing parks, the history of Channel Islands National Park has been shaped by the involvement of several policy entrepreneurs.

THE LONG ROAD TO CHANNEL ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK

Channel Islands National Park was created as the fortieth park in the National Park Service system through a statute signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on March 5, 1980 (Public Law 96-199). The creation of the park offers a view of policy processes stretching over decades. Following the creation of the park, we also examine efforts to acquire and integrate privately held land (particularly Santa Rosa Island) within the park boundaries. The process of acquiring Santa Rosa Island and parcels on Santa Cruz Island took more than seventeen years from the creation of the park, with the federal government taking ownership of the final piece of privately held property not designated for conservation uses in 1997 (the Nature Conservancy continues to own and manage most of Santa Cruz Island). Despite the change to federal ownership, full integration of Santa Rosa Island into the park had not been accomplished by the end of 2010.

The history of this park illustrates the inherent policy challenges associated with converting privately owned land into a national park. The pressures for alternative uses of the land have been many—over the years, private interests have either undertaken or proposed commercial uses for the Channel Islands, including: cattle and sheep ranching, oil exploration, commercial hunting, and resort development. At the time Channel Islands National Park was created, the two privately owned islands were still home to significant numbers of sheep, pigs, deer, and elk, introduced to the islands for commercial ranching or hunting operations.

The authorizing legislation called for a national park including five (of the eight) islands located off the California coast—Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel. The islands, which are the westernmost reaches of the Santa Monica Mountains, are known for their significant natural and cultural resources, including 145 species that are unique to the islands, and cultural artifacts dating back more than ten thousand years. Two of these islands (Anacapa and Santa Barbara) were part of Channel Islands National Monument, which was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 under the authority of the Antiquities Act.Footnote ⁵ Of the remaining three islands, Santa Rosa Island and Santa Cruz Island were privately owned and San Miguel Island was under the control of the U.S. Navy.

The first federal government assessment of the Channel Islands for National Park status was undertaken in 1933 at the direction of NPS director Horace M. Albright (Gherini Reference Gherini2005). The “Report on the Channel Islands Survey” authored by Roger W. Toll recommended National Park status for the Channel Islands based on the unique marine features of the islands (ibid.). However, the Toll Report concluded that efforts to create a Channel Islands National Park should be deferred until privately held land on the islands were donated to the government, and little activity occurred on the park proposal until the early 1960s. At that time, new life was breathed into the effort to create a park by Thomas Storke, editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press, who began an intensive lobbying effort to create a park (ibid., 217).

In April 1963, Democratic senator Claire Engle of California introduced a bill to create the Channel Islands National Seashore, which was opposed by the private land owners on the islands. The creation of a Channel Islands National Park was an issue in the 1964 congressional election between Republican Charles Teague, who opposed the idea of a park as too expensive, and Democrat George Taylor, who supported its establishment. The election of Teague and the death of Senator Engle at the age of fity-two in 1964 effectively ended park establishment efforts in the 1960s. It was again an issue in 1970, when Democratic senatorial candidate John V. Tunney journeyed to Santa Barbara Island to endorse the idea of a park to demonstrate his environmental credentials in a successful campaign to defeat incumbent Republican George Murphy. Senator Alan Cranston and Representative Anthony Beilenson likewise attempted to secure the creation of the park during the early 1970s, but with no success.

While several proposals were introduced in the forty years following the Toll Report in 1933, each proposal to create a national park on the Channel Islands failed to gain sufficient momentum to make it out of committee in Congress. What each of these efforts appeared to lack was a champion (either in Congress or within the National Park Service) who was prepared to consistently push the proposal forward over a long period of time.

In spite of numerous attempts to create a Channel Islands National Park dating back to the 1930s, no park had been established by the mid-1970s. Environmental degradation began to be a public concern in the years following the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. However, a textbook example of a focusing event that married the issue of environmentalism with the Channel Islands occurred on January 28, 1969, when an offshore drilling rig operated by Union Oil experienced a “blowout,” spilling oil into the Santa Barbara Channel (Steinhart and Steinhart Reference Steinhart and Steinhart1972). By the time the leak was finally stopped eleven days later, three million gallons of oil had escaped into the environment. Eight hundred square miles of ocean were affected, and thirty-five miles of coastline were coated with oil up to six inches thick. The oil slick moved south, tarring beaches on four of the Channel Islands: Anacapa, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and San Miguel. Birkland (Reference Birkland1997) maintains that the Santa Barbara oil spill had a galvanizing effect on the entire environmental movement in the United States; it certainly brought renewed attention to preserving the unspoiled environment of the Channel Islands.

After the Santa Barbara oil spill focused attention on potential threats to the unspoiled environment on the Channel Islands, three individuals played critical roles as policy entrepreneurs pushing the proposal to create a Channel Islands National Park through the policy stream. Two congressional figures, along with an administrator with strong political instincts, proved to be the most influential policy entrepreneurs in the founding of the national park. Charles Teague died in 1974 and was succeeded by Robert Lagomarsino (R-Calif.). Unlike Teague, Lagomarsino became an advocate for a park and called the creation of Channel Islands National Park one of his greatest legislative achievements of his more than nineteen years in the House of Representatives (Interview). Lagomarsino, who represented the coastal district that included the Channel Islands, was one of the key individuals who used his institutional position to help forge the political coalition that ultimately resulted in the establishment of the park. Along with Bill Ehorn, the superintendent of Channel Islands National Monument, who became the first superintendent of the park, and Congressman Phillip Burton (D-Calif.), who chaired the House (Interior) Subcommittee on National Parks and Insular Affairs, Lagomarsino steadily worked toward the authorization and funding of the park.

In 1980, the political stream was finally aligned for the creation of Channel Islands National Park. Three elements of the political stream, as identified by Kingdon, were in place: the national mood was supportive of conservation legislation, political forces (both outside and within Congress) were inclined to support the creation of the park, and the administration was agreeable to continuing expansion of public parklands. President Carter was elected in 1976 and the Democrats enjoyed a large advantage in both the House and Senate. Carter brought with him a large number of environmentalists as political appointees in key positions in his administration (Metzger Reference Metzger1979). In addition, by 1980, Carter’s popularity had declined, including a decline among environmentalists, who believed that he had not lived up to expectations, and in an election year Carter was looking to shore up his base not only for the general election battle but also to fend off a primary challenge from the left from Senator Edward Kennedy.

Other political factors worked in favor of passage of the legislation in 1980, including Congressman Burton’s building of political support for a potential challenge to Majority Leader Jim Wright. In the process of mounting a challenge to Wright (which failed by one vote), Burton built alliances that could also be translated into votes for a variety of legislative initiatives, including parks such as Channel Islands (Jacobs Reference Jacobs1995). This was also a period when Congress supported dramatic expansion in the National Park Service, including the landmark Alaska National Interest Lands Act. All of these factors contributed to a political climate that was favorable to the creation of the nation’s fortieth national park.

CHANNEL ISLANDS AND THE PARK BARREL: POLICY ENTREPRENEURS AT WORK

The legislation that ultimately created the national park was the result of a strange alliance between the brusque San Francisco liberal Democrat Phillip Burton and the more reserved Ventura county conservative Republican Robert Lagomarsino. Burton and Lagomarsino’s odd alliance dated back to their overlapping tenures in the California Legislature. Lagomarsino began what he termed a “weird” working relationship—”like the U.S. and Russia during World War II”—with Burton that lasted for many years of shared service on the subcommittee on National Parks and Insular Affairs and reached its apex with the passage of PL 96-199.Footnote ⁶ While their relationship may have been “weird,” the efforts of Burton and Lagomarsino were also classic examples of two policy entrepreneurs at work.

In 1977, a bill was once again introduced into the House by Congressman Anthony Beilenson and into the Senate by Senator Alan Cranston that proposed the creation of a single park encompassing both the Santa Monica Mountains and the Channel Islands. The reintroduction of a proposal that circulated for more than forty years might have appeared unlikely for success under other circumstances, but its presence in the policy stream turned out to be very timely in the late 1970s.

A version on the Beilenson bill was subsequently included in the omnibus parks bill that was being constructed by subcommittee chairman Burton. This omnibus bill, frequently referred to as the “Park Barrel” bill due to the inclusion of 150 projects affecting more than two hundred congressional districts in forty-four states was the first legislative attempt to package a logroll of park authorizations in the same way that omnibus bills had previously packaged road or water project authorizations.Footnote ⁷ However, during the later stages of the bill’s construction, the Channel Islands and Santa Monica Mountains provisions were separated, and the authorization for a Channel Islands National Park was removed from this bill prior to its enactment in 1978.

Several factors motivated Burton to remove the Channel Islands provisions from the omnibus bill. Most important perhaps was the bill’s overall price tag. The Carter administration, which had been preaching deficit reduction as a way to control inflation, was concerned that the bill, which cost more than ten times the typical parks bill, had too great a fiscal impact. Burton responded by cutting millions of dollars and several projects from the original proposal (Burton Papers, Box 40, Omnibus Parks Bill). In addition, both Lagomarsino and Superintendent Bill Ehorn were concerned with the bill’s provisions, which combined Channel Islands and Santa Monica in one administrative unit. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was an extremely ambitious and controversial project to curtail development in the Santa Monica Mountains areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties and to create a park within easy driving distance of what at the time was estimated to be thirteen million people. The 1978 park barrel bill was signed into law without inclusion of a Channel Islands National Park but with the more expensive and controversial Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area included.

In the following Congress (the 99th of 1979–80), Burton worked with Lagomarsino to craft a Channel Islands National Park bill more to Lagomarsino’s liking. Burton feared that President Carter would not be reelected, and the election of a Republican president would likely mean the closing of the policy window of opportunity.Footnote ⁸ Burton sought to capitalize on the momentum of the environmental movement before a less friendly Republican president took office (Jacobs Reference Jacobs1995). This bill also became an omnibus parks bill, containing provisions not only dealing with Channel Islands but also adding funding for Olympic National Park, additional land acquisition at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and making numerous technical corrections and additions to parks authorized in the previous omnibus bill. Lagomarsino gave Burton much of the credit for crafting and enacting the bill that authorized CINP. In his statement included in the Congressional Record commemorating the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the park, Lagomarsino stated: “I cannot end this tale without reporting the contribution of the late Representative Phil Burton, then-chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks and Insular Affairs, on which I served then as now. Phil, whose persuasive powers are legend in this House, agreed to roll my bill into an omnibus parks bill he was pushing. The juggernaut swept through the House on the suspension calendar, passed the Senate by a vote of 67 to 6” (Hon. Robert J. Lagomarsino, February 28, 1990. Congressional Record vol. 136, no. 18).

The National Park Service supported the idea of a Channel Islands National Park as early as 1933, but, by the 1970s, the Park Service was chronically underfunded, and with increased management demands resulting from the tremendous increase in land and facilities from the omnibus 1978 park barrel bill, the NPS and its cabinet home, the Department of the Interior, were hesitant to take on even more areas of responsibility. Lagomarsino believes that Superintendent Ehorn was crucial in convincing the DOI and NPS that Channel Islands should be converted into a national park, including the three islands not within the monument at that time. In an interview, Lagomarsino favorably compared Ehorn to Oliver North, as a bureaucrat who used substantial initiative to pursue his goals. Although the NPS and the Interior Department had previously gone on record opposing CINP, on July 19, 1979, department representatives testified: “The National Park Service has listed Channel Islands as our number one priority for inclusion in the National Park System” (Burton Papers, Box 39, Channel Islands). While others carried on legislative battles for park status, Ehorn’s persistent efforts within the NPS in part helped to win support within the agency.

Although the Channel Islands bill passed the House easily, not even necessitating a roll-call vote, its progress in the Senate was slowed by the opposition of California’s Republican senator S. I. Hayakawa and the politically influential Vail family, which owned the land on Santa Rosa Island. The Vail family, which desired to continue operating the Vail and Vickers cattle ranch, objected to Santa Rosa Island’s inclusion as a national park and sought to have Santa Rosa excluded from the park’s boundaries. The Vails were supported in their efforts to oppose inclusion in the park by the California Cattlemen’s Association (CCA), who wrote to Senator Hayakawa that its members “are relying on you as a friend of agriculture and a defender of private property rights to introduce an amendment to HR 3757 which will totally exclude the Santa Rosa Island from this bill” (Hayakawa Papers, signed William B. Staiger, executive vice president, California Cattlemen’s Association, January 31, 1980). Senator Hayakawa responded to the CCA on February 13, 1980: “Please be assured of my continued support for the interests of the California Cattlemen’s Association. I have asked [legislative assistant] Mary Goedde to attempt to reach you by phone so that you may discuss any issues related to this Channel Islands Bill and so that you will be assured of my interest and support for your position” (Hayakawa Papers).

Hayakawa’s amendment was opposed by California’s other senator, Democrat Alan Cranston, and it was defeated. However, a provision was added to the final bill in Senate mark-up (Section 202 [c]), which called for the acquisition of land on Santa Rosa to be given “priority” over the acquisition of other privately owned land on the islands (Santa Cruz).Footnote ⁹ The Vail’s influence during the legislative process is abundantly clear in the documentary record. In the papers of former Chairman Burton, there are many references to the desires of the Vail family. It is clear that the original wording of the legislation concerning land acquisition was crafted with the Vail family in mind. A note to parks subcommittee staffer Cleve Pinnix from his colleague Tom Williams concerning a draft of the bill reads: “With regard to Channel Islands, look at the land acquisition section. I think some pretty strong language like this will be necessary to get [Senate Subcommittee chair Dale] Bumpers to sign off. The Vails, as you know, are very nervous and want out altogether. Maybe this will calm them down. I don’t think it really changes things that much” (TW [Tom Williams] to Cleve Pinnix, memo, Box 30, File CINP).

Although the language may have been useful in easing passage of the legislation, it had a significant impact on the subsequent acquisition of Santa Rosa Island and set a tone that had an impact on its integration into the new park. It is interesting to note that the enabling legislation for Channel Islands National Park was not the focus of significant or sustained advocacy or opposition (aside from opposition by Vail & Vickers) by either major interest groups or the local community.

In signing PL 96-199, President Carter closed one chapter in the story of the park while setting the stage for the next. The passage of this bill was eased by the convergence of a favorable political climate and a viable proposal shepherded by key policy entrepreneurs. Although enacted, the legislation set the stage for a new set of policy and political issues to be faced in order to implement the legislation and turn a two-island national monument into the five-island national park envisioned in the act.

THE POLITICS OF LAND ACQUISITION

The omnibus parks bill that created Channel Islands National Park merely authorized its existence. In order for the park to become fully realized, funds needed to be appropriated to purchase the land and the acquisition process must result in the transfer of ownership of that land, both activities that are often political exercises in themselves. While there are also challenges associated with integrating land from other government agencies into parks (such as San Miguel Island), these pale in comparison to issues associated with acquiring privately held property.

Prior to the creation of the national park, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz were controlled by three families who operated ranches on the islands. Santa Rosa Island was owned by the Vail family, which maintained a controlling interest in the Vail and Vickers partnership, a cattle ranching operation on the island. Ownership of Santa Cruz Island was divided into seven parcels by a court decision in 1925. Parcels 6 and 7 on the east end of Santa Cruz Island were owned by members of the Gherini family, which operated an active sheep ranch from 1926 to 1984. The remaining parcels on the island were under the control of Dr. Carey Stanton, who negotiated a deal with the Nature Conservancy, which took over ownership of Stanton’s share of the island upon his death (Jones Reference Jones1978).Footnote ¹⁰ When Stanton died in December 1987, the Nature Conservancy became the owner of 90 percent of Santa Cruz Island (Gherini, 178). All three families (the Vails, Gherinis, and Stantons), who held ownership of land within the boundaries of the newly established national park, believed they had been excellent stewards of the land, and that government ownership of the islands would not be in the best interest of the environment. According to Lagomarsino: “Al Vail … would take you across the island where there was an old Air Force base put in during World War II and just a rotten mess, abandoned—all falling in, a hazard and asbestos” (Lagomarsino Oral History). These families felt that the Channel Islands were their homes, and they believed that Park Service efforts to manage the Channel Islands were a threat to their traditions and way of life. Yet, when the Park Service formulated a Draft Land Protection Plan that called for private land on the Channel Islands to be acquired in stages (due to limited availability of appropriations), with some of Santa Cruz being acquired prior to Santa Rosa, the Vail and Vickers partnership protested vehemently, pointing to the priority provision in the statute requiring Santa Rosa Islands to be purchased before other property.

Gaining appropriations for the purchase of land authorized by the creation of the park proved difficult. Immediately following the creation of the park in March 1980, President Carter announced that he would dramatically reduce that size of the Land and Water Conservation Fund for Fiscal Year 1981 (Jones and Hume 1980). In the early years of the Reagan administration, the policy window for park creation and expansion that opened during the previous administration was substantially closed. Interior Secretary James Watt called on the National Park Service to focus more resources on park management, improving conditions and services at existing parks, and less on expansion.

The Land and Water Acquisition fund was zeroed out in FY 1982, and it remained smaller than it had been in previous years throughout the Reagan presidency. Funds for acquisition of land on the Channel Islands were the subject of dozens of memos to key members of the House and Senate appropriations committee from Lagomarsino during the early years of the park’s existence. As it became clear that the Park Service desire for phased acquisition split between both privately held islands was not politically viable, Lagomarsino concentrated his efforts in securing funding for acquisition of Santa Rosa Island. According to the former congressman: “One of the heroes, to me, in all of this to me was … Senator Jim McClure of Idaho, who was chair of the Senate Interior subcommittee on appropriations that dealt with national parks and public lands and so on. And when I called him up one time and was going to ask him for some money, we wanted just a million or so to get started on this thing and he said ‘How is five million?’ and it kind of went from there” (Lagomarsino Oral History).

The Conference Report on the continuing appropriations bill for FY 1985, written by Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee chair Jim McClure (H. Conf. Rept. 98-1159), contained an earmark for $15 million to acquire land for Channel Islands National Park. In addition to more than $18 million already appropriated in previous fiscal years, but not yet spent for this purpose, the NPS had sufficient funding to acquire all of Santa Rosa Island from Vail and Vickers.Footnote ¹¹ The conference report also deleted language in the Senate Report that would have eliminated the priority given to Santa Rosa Island.

On January 14, 1986, the National Park Service regional office in San Francisco reported that the Vails signed the NPS offer of $29.6 million for Santa Rosa. William C. Kelly, the attorney who represented Vail and Vickers in the negotiations with the Park Service, wrote to Lagomarsino, stating: “On behalf of Vail and Vickers and on my own behalf, I want to thank you for your stalwart and effective support of the appropriations needed to honor the statutory commitment to acquire Santa Rosa Island” (letter to Robert J. Lagomarsino, 17 December 1985). It was assumed that Santa Rosa Island would now be fully integrated into the national park; however, as seen in the following section, that outcome was still not realized by 2010, then twenty years after the acquisition of the land.

SANTA ROSA ISLAND AND THE POLITICS OF HUNTING

Instead of ending the story, the acquisition of Santa Rosa Island by the Park Service opened another chapter in the struggle for control and management of the island. Prior to its purchase by the National Park Service in 1986, the island was owned by the Vail and Vickers partnership, with members of the Vail family functioning as the principal partners. The Vail family has historically been involved in a number of significant ranching activities in the western United States and has political connections to Republican elected officials.Footnote ¹² In recent years, the family has retained the services of well-connected lobbying firms, including the Alpine Group, to advocate on its behalf in Washington. The relationship between the Vail family and the Park Service since the creation of the park has ranged from friendly and informal during Bill Ehorn’s tenure as park superintendent to tense and confrontational during much of the period since his departure in 1990. Since 1990, the island has been the focus of legal, administrative, and political battles over the continuation of Vail & Vickers ranching and hunting operations.

While the island hosted cattle ranching operations for more than a century, the advent of commercial hunting activity in the late 1970s set the stage for a struggle that continues to this day. The owners of the island introduced mule deer and Roosevelt elk for hunting purposes in the early 1900s (Vail and Vickers, undated). Trophy hunters are charged between $5,000 and $16,000 to participate in hunts on the island run by a contractor (Capps Reference Capps2006). Commercial and recreational hunting has historically been outside the range of recreational activities permitted in the national park system, except where it is specifically permitted by statute, such as in some Alaskan units.

At the time the park was created, there was discussion about the possibility of retaining some of the “ranching heritage” of Santa Rosa Island under Park Service management. The park’s enabling legislation allowed for a twenty-five-year period of “use and occupancy” where the prior owners could, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, continue “any existing use of such property which is compatible with the administration of the park and with the preservation of the resources therein” (Public Law 96-199, 94 Stat 74, Section 202 [c]). Superintendent Ehorn embraced this approach and worked with the Vails to maintain both ranching and hunting operations through a series of special-use permits. Although Ehorn pointed to testimony and discussion in the Congressional Record as the source of guidance and policy with regard to management of Santa Rosa (Ehorn interview, Reference Ehorn2007), other than Section 202 of the enabling legislation there does not appear to be statutory authority or written policy to accompany the informal understandings developed between Ehorn and the Vails concerning management of the island.

After Ehorn left to become superintendent of Redwood National Park in 1990, the relationship between the Park Service and the Vails became increasingly characterized by conflict as later superintendents sought to formalize the owner-tenant relationship and place greater emphasis on conservation of natural resources. According to Mack Shaver, who succeeded Ehorn as superintendent, “My first major job when I got there was to renew the special-use permit for the Vail operation, and the original special-use permit read like a special-use permit that the Vails had written permitting the Park Service to use the island. And I rewrote it to make it a Park Service document” (Shaver interview, Reference Shaver2007). Jon Jarvis, who became the eighteenth director of the Park Service in 2009, characterized the tense and, at times, contentious relationship in recent years between the Park Service and the prior island owners as “a pretty intense period, they don’t want to give it up. I don’t blame them … they’ve got the island to themselves, they make a lot of money off this, they have an exclusive clientele. But we’ve got to remember Santa Rosa is a National Park and it was set aside by Congress with taxpayers’ dollars for the American public. … I think we have been, as an agency, extraordinarily fair to the Vails that they’ve had a much longer run … that policies shouldn’t have allowed on the islands and our goal here is to bring it to an end in 2012” (Jarvis interview, Reference Jarvis2007).

Ranching operations on Santa Rosa came to an end as the result of the settlement of a 1997 federal lawsuit brought by the National Parks Conservation Association. The settlement agreement also specifies that hunting must end by the end of 2011 and that all deer and elk must be removed by that time with specific annual goals for reductions in the ungulate population on the island. Even the methodology for counting the ungulate population has been an ongoing source of debate between the Vails and park officials, who appear to have substantially different understandings of the number of animals remaining on the island.

While controversy and conflict marked the relationship between park officials and the Vail family over much of the past twenty years, this conflict has been somewhat overshadowed by one of the more unusual episodes in Park Service history. Beginning in 2005, Santa Rosa Island was once again a setting where park development was shaped by a key policy entrepreneur. As with the park’s creation, a congressional figure took advantage of his position and changes in the national political climate to push a policy change. Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the politically ambitious chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, used his key institutional position to enact a legislative provision aimed at preventing the elimination of non-native ungulates (deer and elk) on Santa Rosa. This is legislation that many observers believe was designed to ensure that hunting continued within the park in spite of a court settlement and NPS management policies.

Representative Hunter had no prior public involvement with the park before offering an amendment to HR 1815 in 2005 to transfer management of Santa Rosa Island to the Department of Defense for “the purpose of ensuring that the island remains available for recreational activities of members of the armed forces and official guests” (Hunter, Reference Hunter2005). When this initial amendment failed, Hunter then unsuccessfully introduced stand-alone legislation. He ultimately succeeded in inserting language into the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill that allowed deer and elk to remain on the island and appeared to permit hunting there indefinitely. Rather than using the normal committee process that would have included review and votes on an amendment, Hunter inserted language in the conference committee’s version of the appropriation bill using a process known as the Chairman’s mark. At this stage in the legislative process, differing versions of the bill had already been passed by both houses of Congress and a compromise between the two was being returned to the Senate and House for final approval. Because of the urgency and political sensitivity of this measure that provided war funding, it moved forward despite the highly unorthodox insertion of an unrelated item that had not been the subject of a prior vote related to the bill. This provision appears to be the first instance where public access to a national park has been limited for the benefit of a single group of users (Levey, Reference Levey2006). Hunter’s success in shepherding the passage of this unusual provision is another reminder of the dramatic impact that a single skilled and influential policy entrepreneur can have on the growth and development of a park.

Not surprisingly, the Hunter provision provoked strong reaction. At a Senate hearing on a proposal to repeal Hunter’s provision, subcommittee chair Senator Daniel Akaka stated that “the provision was included outside of the committee’s jurisdiction and was opposed by both the California Senators and the Congresswoman in whose district the park lies. In response to that proposal, this committee unanimously reported and the Senate subsequently passed a resolution urging that Santa Rosa Island be managed in accordance with the laws that govern the management of national parks” (Senate hearing 110–104, 2007). Given changes in the makeup of Congress, including Representative Hunter’s loss of the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee, the prospects of legislative repeal were strong. In spite of efforts by Hunter and his Republican colleague Don Young to maintain the Santa Rosa Island provision in the 2006 bill, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, which contained language repealing the Hunter provision.

On January 1, 2009, the park issued a final special-use permit on Santa Rosa Island to Vail & Vickers. The permit allows for the hunting of deer and elk through the end of 2011 and includes a provision that the park service will share in “unusual” costs to remove animals remaining at the end of 2011 if, “the Permittee meets all deer and elk reduction requirements in every year prior to 2011,” and meets other conditions demonstrating diligent efforts specified in the permit (National Park Service, 2009). Beyond the concerns of the Vail family, groups such as the National Rifle Association perceive hunting on Santa Rosa to be a test of Park Service policy on hunting in national parks. As a result, it is unlikely that this issue has reached a point of conclusion. As the 2011 date for the removal of non-native ungulates approaches, it is likely that advocates for hunting will continue to challenge the current policy.