Santa Cruz Island

You may have noticed a gap in my posts; I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on a field trip to Santa Cruz Island with the Museum's teen program. Actually, I went with the T.E.E.N. Program, which is the Teen Education and Employment Network; it is a joint youth program for teens at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and the Santa Barbara Zoo.
The trip was excellent. The island is amazing, and we got to see all the really amazing parts that most people don't get to see. 76% of Santa Cruz is owned by the Nature Conservancy, so you can only get on their land by special permit. Naturally the Museum is privy to such permitting. We hikes, we toured, we had experts in a variety of fields interpret what we saw, heard, touched and smelled. Oh, and I was the astronomy expert - super stargazing!
The teens were also great and it was fun to get to know the newer teens. They all pitched in to cook and to clean, and all of them spent some time teaching the rest of the group something they've learned in their classes this summer. My teens did an excellent job showing constellations, stars and deep sky objects to the group.
I could go on and on about the staggering number of endemic species, the biodiversity and the unique ecosystems found on the island, but instead I'll just show you a few pretty pictures.