Gallegly Calls for Park’s Immediate Closure

Channel Islands National Park should immediately be closed until federal officials can design a more effective system for warning visitors about a potentially deadly virus carried by mice at the popular tourist destination, Rep. Elton Gallegly said Tuesday.

The call for action comes after a 7-year-old Oxnard boy was found playing with a deer mouse on Santa Rosa Island that later tested positive for hantavirus antibodies. That means the mouse, which was still a baby, either had the disease or had the antibodies passed to it at birth.

The virus--which according to recent studies infects as many as seven in 10 rodents at several islands in the national park--can cause a rare but potentially fatal disease in people, although reportedly none of the 60,000 tourists who visit each year has become ill.

Although the National Park Service says the boy--who has not been identified--has not shown any signs of infection, Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said the incident underlines the potential for disaster and urged that immediate steps be taken to better warn visitors about the disease-carrying mice at the islands.

“This is not something that just causes a stomachache or a little discomfort; this is a life-threatening disease,” said Gallegly, who has asked for hearings on hantavirus-related health risks at the national park.

“Right now, the only protection is prevention,” he added. “It’s unconscionable that the park service would not do everything in its power to fully warn visitors of the danger.”

But a spokeswoman for Channel Islands National Park said much already is done to warn visitors about potential health risks, including the posting of signs at every island in the park system--even those where no hantavirus has been detected.

In fact, spokeswoman Carol Spears said it was because of the park service’s information campaign that the incident came to light. The boy played with the baby mouse over two days during the Memorial Day holiday and wanted to keep him as a pet, Spears said. He even gave the mouse a name, Squeaky.

When his mother learned that the boy had been playing with the rodent, she brought the mouse to park service officials and asked that it be tested for hantavirus. She apparently read signs about the disease at the island campground, Spears said.

“The safety of our visitors is primary to us, and we will continue to look at ways we can inform more people,” Spears said. “But we do feel that we are doing an effective job now.”

Efforts to reach the boy’s family were unsuccessful.

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Gallegly’s proposal is the latest chapter in the ongoing story, brought to light in The Times, about the presence of hantavirus on the Channel Islands.

A succession of wet winters and a dearth of natural predators have produced a population explosion of disease-carrying rodents on the islands. The disease doesn’t harm mice but can be transmitted to humans via dust contaminated by rodent droppings, urine or saliva or by rodent bites.

It is difficult to contract, but it can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which produces flu-like symptoms that often cause lungs to fill with fluid until the victim drowns.

Park service officials first maintained that there was nothing to worry about, saying they believed that the type of hantavirus at the islands was not infectious to humans.

That stirred a strong reaction from California’s top health officials, who earlier this year urged the National Park Service to take more precautions to protect employees and island visitors.

Health officials pointed out that the island strain of hantavirus was, in fact, the same form of the disease that killed two dozen people near the New Mexico-Utah border six years ago and has infected 15 Californians since.

Since then, the park service has stepped up efforts to tell visitors about potential health risks at the islands, said Vicki Kramer, chief of the vector-borne disease section at the state health department.

Those efforts include posting warnings on the park service’s Web page and at the Visitors Center and island campgrounds. In addition, visitors receive written information about the presence of the virus on the islands when their reservations are confirmed by mail.

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“They have taken steps over the last several months to increase awareness among employees and visitors,” Kramer said. “Several months ago there was very little awareness, but things have improved.”

But Gallegly is not convinced.

In addition to requesting that park service officials temporarily cut off public access to the islands, he is urging his fellow lawmakers to expedite hearings on the issue.

He said such hearings are critical to developing a long-range strategy for dealing with the potential health problems and ensuring that visitors and park employees are not put at risk.

“I don’t want to see that park close; it’s one of the most outstanding public resources we have,” Gallegly said. “But public health should come above all else.”