SANTA CATALINA ISLAND, Calif. - Funding to restore bald eagles to Santa Catalina Island was cut out of a $25-million plan to deal with the lingering effects of tons of DDT dumped into the ocean.
The 25-year-old effort to reintroduce the birds to Catalina will no longer receive money from a fund established to dole out about $140 million in DDT lawsuit settlements, it was announced Monday.
No more support will be given to five breeding pairs of bald eagles on the island until it is determined whether they can survive and flourish on their own.
"We are extremely disappointed," said Ann Muscat, president of the Catalina Island Conservancy. "We don't think it's the best thing for the eagles or for the island's ecosystem."
Funding will continue for the reintroduction of the birds on Santa Cruz and other nearby Channel Islands that already have about two dozen birds.
Bald eagles once flourished on the islands off the Southern California coast but they disappeared in the 1960s as DDT dumped in the ocean polluted their food chain. The now-banned pesticide made the birds' eggshells brittle.
Since 1991, money to reintroduce the birds to Catalina has come from a fund created by Montrose Chemical Co., other companies and about 100 municipalities that used the ocean for dumping. Three federal and three state agencies oversee the money.
An estimated 100 tons of DDT remain on the ocean floor off the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and the chemicals continue to accumulate in marine life. The contamination is worse on Catalina than on other islands and the eggs there are so fragile they have to be incubated.
Even then, only about one in five produced chicks last year, said Annie Little, bird biologist for the Montrose Settlements Restoration Program.
The hatching rate hasn't improved over the years, said Greg Baker, program manager for the restoration program.
Funds provided for Catalina eagle work will be suspended but the birds will be monitored to determine if they can survive on their own, he said.
The funding announcement was a blow to Dave Garcelon, who began the reintroduction program and formed the Arcata-based Institute for Wildlife Studies.
The Catalina program costs about $120,000 a year and without the settlement money, "the program will have to be somewhat scaled back," he said. "But we're going to do the best we can."
The California Coastal Commission supported keeping the Catalina funding in a vote last December. It does not have direct authority over the settlement money but does have the option of seeking mediation or suing.
The commission will discuss its options at an upcoming meeting, said Mark Delaplaine, federal consistency supervisor for the state agency.
"The commission and the federal agencies are equal partners" in the settlement money program, he said.
"That means we're supposed to work things out," he said. "The law says they have to be consistent, but the law is silent on who gets the final say."
The $25 million wildlife plan announced Monday would include funds to remove feral cats from San Nicolas Island to protect colonies of western gulls and double-crested cormorants. Santa Cruz Island projects would help two other species, Cassin's auklet and the ashy storm-petrel.
Some money also will be used for coastal wetlands restoration.
