Solitary Ranger’s Job Makes Him an Island Unto Himself

John (Corky) Farley, the sole human resident of this island 45 miles west of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, said, “I have 100 to 150 house guests all the time. Some of them walk across my face in the middle of the night.”

His guests are “deer mice native to the island, the size of an ordinary house mouse. I live-trap them and take them outside, but as fast as I get rid of them, others move in. No way can I make this old place mouseproof.”

Farley, 36, is the National Park Service ranger here, which makes him curator of the smallest island--1 1/2 miles long, three-quarters of a mile wide--in the Channel Islands National Park off the Southern California coast. His home is a Navy Quonset hut left over from World War II, perched high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific.

Farley has other company beside the deer mice. This 635-foot mountain rising from the sea is alive with birds: brown pelicans, Western gulls, cormorants, kestrels, short-eared owls and barn owls.

There are horned larks, rock wrens, Savannah sparrows, orange-crowned warblers, Costa’s hummingbirds, Cassin’s auklets, pigeon guillemots, black oyster catchers and Xantus’ murrelets.

Santa Barbara Island has the largest known breeding colony of Xantus’ murrelets in the world. Numbering a few thousand, the small chubby, neckless sea birds nest in island cliffs. Murrelet chicks, 48 hours old, instinctively leave their nest in the middle of the night and tumble down to the sea where they spend the rest of their lives on and above the ocean except when returning to land during nesting season.

Along the rocky island shores are elephant seal, sea lion and harbor seal rookeries. Come June and July the rookeries will be alive with newborn pups.

“Sometimes migrating whales will hang around the island for a few days to a week, and I’ll go out and dive with them,” said the ranger.

Farley spends 10 days on the island and is then spelled for four days by another ranger or by a scientist doing research. He has lived here two years. In winter he is often the only person on the island during his 10 days out in the middle of the sea.

“Then I have more room to stretch than anyone in Southern California. The nearest land is Catalina’s West End, 21 miles away,” he explained. “Los Angeles, with its millions of people, is just over the horizon, yet it seems like I am a world away. I don’t deal with the everyday hustle and bustle.

“There is no telephone out here. No vehicles. No mail delivery. No daily newspapers. I get the news listening to a battery-operated radio or TV. I hear about who’s shooting who on the freeways.”

From June through September, however, he is rarely alone. Flotillas of boats sail or motor to the island. From May 27 through October on Fridays and Sundays, Island Packers Co., a concessionaire, transports visitors to this remote piece of the national park on three-hours-each-way boat runs from Ventura. The cost for a day’s outing is $45 for adults, $30 for children.

As many as 30 people are permitted to camp each night on the island in a campsite next to the Quonset hut. Campers must bring their own water, tents and food. Reservations are necessary.

Farley, 5 feet, 11 inches, 200 pounds and sprouting a brown mustache, greets everyone who visits the island. He leads them on walks over the five miles of trails. “I’m the mayor, police chief, fire chief and dog catcher,” he laughs.

As park ranger he is a federal peace officer. He also is a sheriff’s deputy for Santa Barbara County. He is a California Fish and Game warden. He is the island fire department. He heads rescue efforts and calls the Coast Guard for help if any emergencies occur, such as when someone is injured in a fall, suffers a heart attack or has a diving mishap.

Santa Barbara Island is a mecca for divers, who relish the clear waters alive with garibaldis, sheepshead, nudibranch, lobster, abalone and a variety of other sea life dwelling among spectacular purple coral in underwater reefs.

The saddle-shaped island has two high points, 635-foot Signal Peak and 562-foot North Peak. It is treeless and covered with low vegetation. Dotting the island are stands of giant coreopsis, resembling dwarf trees growing five feet high and having thick, woody stems and bright yellow flowers this time of year. There is prickly pear cactus and iceplant.

Dudlea traskai, a cactus-type plant without flowers, is found nowhere else and is also known as the Santa Barbara Island live-forever.

The island is blanketed with wild oats, barley and rye originally planted for sheep that grazed its flat ridges and steep slopes from the turn of the century through the 1930s.

Seldom-seen, rare island night lizards are the only other land animals besides mice on the island. “Except for the exotic grasses, the five miles of foot trails, the small campsite and the Quonset hut, the island is the way God created it, mostly untouched by man,” said Farley.

When he leaves the island he spends his four days off with his wife, Laurel Pistel, who works for the U.S. Forest Service in Modoc County in the northeast corner of California.

“It takes me 13 hours to go home,” said Farley. “The three-hour boat ride to Ventura, where I have an old clunker I use for the 45-minute-to-an-hour drive to the airport in Santa Barbara.

“The flight to San Francisco is an hour. Then it takes a 45-minute-to-an-hour bus ride to a house we own in San Raphael where I pick up my second car for the seven-hour drive to Alturas.”