Channel Islands National Park Guide

Channel Islands National Park Highlights

The Channel Islands occupy such a unique niche in the ecology of the United States that they're sometimes referred to as America's Galapagos. As you'd expect with such a label, the park's diversity of animal and plant life is amazing. More than 2,000 species crowd this small park, and of those 145 can be found nowhere else on earth.
The islands are Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara. Each island has its own character. Anacapa is the entry point, tiny, popular, and closest to shore. Santa Cruz is the largest and most biologically diverse; it is largely owned by the nonprofit The Nature Conservancy. Santa Rosa is the most historically interesting, and the most wide open of the larger islands for those who want to do some independent exploring. San Miguel has (arguably) the best hiking as well as terrific wildlife. Tiny Santa Barbara is the most isolated, a place to go to be alone in a wild, windy ocean.
The waters surrounding the Channel Islands are home to the largest aggregation of blue whales in the world. From July to September, approximately 10 percent of the world's blue whales gather in the Santa Barbara Channel. The whales arrive during periods of upwelling, when plankton, the whales' preferred food, is available. Humpback whales are attracted by these same ocean conditions.
The island loggerhead shrike, a predatory songbird, is an endemic subspecies found only on Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Catalina Islands. The bird is on the brink of extinction, with less than 50 breeding pairs still in existence. It is most often seen in grassland and coastal sage scrub habitat or near coastal ravines.

By Travel Expert: Ann Marie Brown