Island Squeeze

The Vail family and their Mexican vaqueros have run their cattle on the rolling hills of this remote island for nearly a century.

Now, they say, the National Park Service is trying to run them off the island--wielding the Endangered Species Act as a weapon.

When park service officials look at the undulating grasslands of Santa Rosa they see streams flowing heavy with cattle urine, and fragile, endangered plants threatened by the trampling hooves of the Vails’ cattle.

They see a beautiful island ecosystem under park protection that they are charged with overseeing for the public and posterity.

The Vails see their livelihood--and their faith in the federal government--being destroyed.

A little more than a decade ago, the island 45 miles off the Ventura coast was drawn into the newly formed Channel Islands National Park.

As Russ Vail tells the story, the government forced Vail and Vickers, the two families that owned the island, to sell. So they brokered the best deal they could.

“We didn’t want to be in the park in the first place,” Vail said. “But they drew a line around us. We made the best of it. The bill was passed and we were taken.”

In what Vail now refers to as a gentlemen’s agreement, they consented to sell the island for nearly $30 million, and keep ranching until 2011--long enough for the current generation of ranchers to finish out their lives on the island.

There was but one proviso: that the ranchers continue to manage the island in an environmentally sound way. In 1986 that meant doing things the same way they always had.

But environmental standards have become more stringent, the amount of scientific data available from the island has increased, and even interpretations of original agreement between the ranchers and the park service have altered with time.

Now, 11 years later, the Vails are fighting to keep their business alive.

The National Park Service, with angry environmentalists and the state Water Quality Control Board demanding improvements, has put together a new 14-year resources management plan.

The plan--the third since the Vails sold the island, and by far the most restrictive to date--would require the ranchers to fence off vast tracts of the island to grazing cattle, and drastically reduce the number of cattle that can graze in other fields that are still open.

Also, the park service contends it never agreed the Vails could continue ranching the island.

“We are aware of no agreement between Vail & Vickers and the park service regarding continued use of the land,” said Kate Faulkner, chief of resources management for the Channel Islands National Park.

But park service Supt. Tim Setnicka, who has talked to park and government officials who made the original deal, disputes that view.

“In essence, the understanding is the Vails would have the ability to ranch substantially as they had in the past for 25 years, once purchase of the property occurred,” he said.

Nevertheless, Setnicka said the park service cannot ignore the state water board, Endangered Species Act or a lawsuit filed last year by environmentalists.

Under the proposed management plan, the Vails would lose 16% of their grazing land by next spring and nearly 50% over the next four years.

John Reynolds, director of the Pacific west region of the National Park Service, is expected to approve the plan soon.

And unless congressional legislation to block the proposal succeeds, the Vails must agree to terms of the plan before the park service would grant them a new special use permit to ranch the island--a process the family will go through in the next few months.

As part of their hunting operation, the ranchers will also have to phase out deer and elk that live on the island.

The Vails say the plan will quickly send the ranch belly up.

“With all the land they are asking us to set aside, we will be put out of business,” said Tim Vail, Russ’ son and a onetime cowboy who now makes his money as a horse surgeon. “Pretty much right away ranching will become untenable.”

A Fresno congressman submitted a bill Wednesday that would force the park service to renew the ranchers’ permit with few changes, and essentially keep ranching operations there until 2011. But the lawmakers who helped the Vails hammer out a deal a decade ago are no longer in power.

And the Vails, who settle cattle deals with a handshake and a promise, say they were too naive to write everything in their government agreement.

“We feel just like the Indians,” said Tim Vail, leaning against a dusty cattle enclosure fence in the blazing island sunshine. “A treaty was made, and then not kept. We are outraged.”

Ranch Site Little Changed in 100 Years

The Vail and Vickers families bought the 54,000-acre island in 1902. The Vickers were primarily silent partners in the operation. Shortly afterward, the firm of Vail & Vickers brought cattle to the island as part of a “stocker” operation, fattening animals for market on the lush island grasses.

Today, the ranch is run much as it was nearly 100 years ago.

A trip to the island is a glimpse at what the California coastline must have looked like before it was coated with cement and populated by millions of people.

Untouched dunes curl across white, sandy beaches; sea lions wallow on giant rocks, and brown pelicans swoop low over the waves in formation.

Pasture fences slice across the land, and deer, elk, cows and horses roam the island range.

On the grassy slopes and sandy beaches are many rare species.

On one slope a sturdy grove of torrey pines thrives. They grow nowhere else in the world except along a stretch of highway near San Diego.

On a wind-buffeted point behind a small enclosure, a patch of Munchkin dudleya carpets the ground. The tiny plant with yellow flowers grows only on Santa Rosa Island.

And on the beaches of Old Ranch, the endangered western snowy plover lays its eggs each spring, behind a fence that keeps out cows, though not wind and wily island foxes.

The island is a treasure trove of archeological artifacts as well. There are thousands of Chumash midden sites--the piles of smashed shells that served as village trash heaps. And the island also offers several village sites. Recently, archeologists unearthed the tusks and bones of a pygmy mammoth on the island.

Life on the island is harsh. Salty winds whip across Santa Rosa’s rounded hills, sculpting the pines and scrub into stunted, slanted forms.

Sometimes, the cowboys say, the wind blows so hard it whisks them off their horses.

Four generations of the family have worked the land, and moved the cattle. Today Al Vail runs the island side of things, while his twin brother Russ works in Santa Barbara running the business.

In preparation for the final turnover, the current generation has found other work on the mainland. Al’s daughter Nita is the director of environmental policy for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and Russ’ son, Tim, is an equine surgeon in La Quinta.

“I’d still be a cowboy if I could,” Tim Vail said, striding across an island bluff.

The cattle cycle follows the seasons. Each fall frisky young cattle weighing about 350 pounds arrive on the island to be fattened. For 18 months they roam the fields and munch on the island grasses.

Starting in May, the cowboys round up the heaviest cows and drive them to the ranch, where they are sorted and weighed. Most weigh about 900 pounds when they leave.

After the cattle spend a night in a holding pen, the vaqueros rise from their bunks at 4:30 a.m. and drive them down a long pier--a thunderous cloud of hooves and dust--onto the Vaquero II, a boat specially designed for shipping the cattle across the Santa Barbara Channel to Port Hueneme.

Cutback on Ranching Operations Begins

With evacuation of the island only 14 years away, the ranchers say they are starting to cut back on operations.

And they say endangered species are still around because they have cared for the land.

“The whole reason they wanted this is because we managed it so well,” Nita Vail said.

Setnicka, the superintendent of the Channel Islands National Park Service, agrees.

“As far as a ranching operation, they have done a terrific job,” Setnicka said. “Why else would we find all these rare species out there?”

But several things occurred in 1995 that forced the park service to take quick action.

Sixteen endangered species proposed for listing were found on the wind-swept rocks and hills of the Channel Islands. Ten of those were found growing on Santa Rosa. Some evolved over thousands of years to specially survive in Santa Rosa’s harsh island ecosystem, and are found nowhere else on earth.

Also, after taking samples of water from the island streams and finding too much evidence of fecal coliform, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a cleanup, or abatement order, to the national park.

Since failure to comply meant steep fines, the park appealed and set to work on the current resource management plan.

Armed with information on the pollution and the endangered species, a watchdog environment group filed suit in December, charging the park service with mismanagement.

The suit by the National Parks and Conservation Assn. awaits a hearing in federal court.

The new plan is an attempt to comply with the latest environmental standards, as well as fend off the legal challenge.

“The agencies involved are putting pressure on us, and we have to comply with them,” Setnicka said. “We must meet the standards of the regional water quality board, and the Endangered Species Act, which have very, very high standards.”

In the eyes of Brian Huse, whose Washington-based group filed the suit, the Vails were paid $30 million for the island and the grazing rights they held.

“Vail & Vickers owned Santa Rosa for a long time and they act like they still do, even though the island is now public parkland,” Huse said. “Santa Rosa is a national park, not a private ranch, or a game park.”

Huse doubts the ranchers ever had an agreement with the federal government to keep the ranch running until 2011.

“It is not in the deed of sale,” he said. “It is not in the legislation. And it is not in the special use permit.”

As pressure mounts for the park service to take action, the agency has officially taken the same line. Except for park Supt. Setnicka.

Setnicka said he has talked to Bill Ehorn, who was park superintendent when the agreement was made, and former U.S. Rep. Robert Lagomarsino, who helped draft the original Channel Islands park legislation.

The problem, he said, is there is no piece of paper that the agreement is written on.

But Setnicka cites the 2011 date used by both sides as evidence there was an agreement.

Lagomarsino also says an agreement was reached.

“My understanding was that they would be able to stay there for at least 25 years to continue ranching,” Lagomarsino said. “I am very sympathetic to the Vails. If I’d known how this would turn out, I probably would not have included them [Santa Rosa] in the national park.”

Setnicka said the Vails’ mistake is that the family treated their deal with the government like a cattle deal.

“Their downfall is, they are used to doing business on a handshake,” Setnicka said. “I’ve watched them buy cattle from Montana sight unseen. I said, ‘Now don’t you usually go out and check it out?’

“And they said, ‘We’ve been working with these people for years. We trust them, they trust us. That’s how you do it in the cattle business.’ ”

The Vails claim in the meantime that endangered species legislation and the newest resource management plan are being manipulated to muscle them off the island before their time is up.

They say they have cooperated with the parks, and have already fenced off certain pastures where endangered plants grow, including the area where the snowy plovers nest. They point proudly to new fencing around the base of one of the island streams that keeps cattle from wading in.

“They are moving us off parts at a time so we can no longer exist,” Tim Vail said.

The park service denies that allegation and contends it is just doing its job.

And Huse, for one, has no sympathy.

“The Vails are trying to portray themselves as a couple of old ranchers being stepped on by the government,” Huse said. “That could not be further from the truth.”

Setnicka feels cornered.

“The park service is in a box,” Setnicka said. “My head is in a vice. On the one side is the Endangered Species Act, the clean water act and the water quality board. On the other side are the Vails. The attorneys are turning the handle.”

But Setnicka also worries about the larger message this dispute could send.

“I think there is a big question of trust on the part of the federal government side,” Setnicka said. “The next time we say something and reserve these rights, what is someone going to say?”

In the meantime the Vails are not expected to throw in the towel. The Vail family has fought the federal government before--in a 17-year battle with the military. And they have hired a lobbyist in Washington, Huse said.

On Wednesday, Rep. George Radanovich (R-Fresno) weighed in, introducing a bill in Congress that would force the park service to reissue the cattle company’s special use permit without any reduction in the number of grazing animals allowed on the island.

“The Vails are fighters,” Setnicka said. “They are not going to take this lying down. They are fighting for their lives. Any time you put someone in that situation you better be ready.”