THE WILDS OF CATALINA OFF-ROAD TOURS OF A NEWLY LUSH INTERIOR EXAMINE ISLAND CONSERVATION EFFORTS.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

AVALON - The invaders stormed the island in relentless waves.

Goats. Sheep. Horses. Cattle. All were brought to Catalina Island in the early 1800s, when it was a Spanish rancho on which the ocean served as the fence.

Next came pigs. Chewing gum tycoon William Wrigley Jr., who bought the island in 1919, introduced them in the hope the boars would eat the rattlesnakes. Didn't happen, but the pigs and their many offspring got quite comfortable here.

A short time later, a few bison were brought over as movie props for a silent picture based on Zane Grey's ``The Vanishing American.'' The herd remained and grew, and it was the vegetation that vanished.

Mule deer followed, imported so that sportsmen would have something to shoot at other than the pigs.

Other interlopers found their way in, too. They were plants - hotel landscaping that breached its planter boxes, grasses, vines, weeds.

In another California community, all of this might have been cause for an exaggerated shrug. But Catalina, whose 48,000 acres are largely undeveloped, had a unique opportunity. If managed properly, the reasoning went, it could approximate the world that explorer Juan Cabrillo gazed upon when his ships sailed into these sheltered coves in 1542.

Today the island is in recovery mode, owing to the work of the Catalina Island Conservancy, which this year is marking the 30th anniversary of its acquisition of 88 percent of the island from the Wrigley family.

During its three decades of stewardship, many of the feral animals have been removed, the bison herd has been dramatically reduced and war has been declared on the pesky non-native plants. As a direct result, foxes and bald eagles have begun to flourish here as they once did, and endemic shrubs, flowers and trees have been coaxed back to viability.

Some visitors to the island have begun to take notice, their attention diverted from sunbathing, semi-submersibles, ice cream, karaoke and nautical knickknacks - the more traditional tourist offerings of Avalon.

``We feel that one way people will love and protect the land and the sea is if they understand something about it, and have a chance to experience it,'' said Ann Muscat, president of the conservancy. ``I think (the interior) is a part of Catalina that is not that well-known to people.''

To remedy that, the conservancy has been offering its Jeep Eco-Tour for the past few years. Catalina's Discovery Tours, meanwhile, recently put a Mercedes Unimog into service on its Cape Canyon Tour, a four-hour excursion through the wilds of the island's east end. Joe Caliva, who oversees tours for the Santa Catalina Island Co., said the vehicle was acquired late last year precisely because of tourists' growing curiosity about what lies beyond Avalon.

There might be no time like the present to climb aboard this imposing, military-brown beast, which has high wheel clearance, four-wheel drive and open-air seating for 12 passengers beneath a canopy.

The heavy rains of winter wreaked havoc on the network of dirt roads in the interior, runoff turning their edges into creeks and washing them out entirely in places. It is reassuring, therefore, to be aboard something built to handle deep ruts and steep inclines.

The rain also had a transformative effect on the island. Catalina normally gets about 12 inches of rain a year, but it has received nearly 30 inches since early October and, with the arrival of spring, is bursting out in verdant beauty. The mountain slopes inland, which routinely have a parched look to them, resemble Ireland's coastal bluffs, while flowers are turning out in all their glory.

On this tour a few weeks back, we found quite a bit of lavender-colored stinging lupine, bright-red Indian paintbrush and soft-yellow island bush poppy - which grows as a shrub rather than the more familiar ground flower that is the California poppy.

Our guide, longtime island resident Fred Procedo, also pointed out wild cucumber, sunflowers, sweet peas and jimson weed, all growing wildly and profusely, right along the roads. ``Some of these flowers I haven't seen for two years,'' he said.

On one of the conservancy's jeep tours, you'll probably also be shown flax-leaf broom, fennel and cape ivy, three particularly insidious invaders that have been crowding out such native plants as island scrub oak and St. Catherine's lace. Turns out the non-native plants love the rain, too.

The conservancy is working to eradicate the invasives and nurture the natives - including eight species that are found nowhere else in the world but on this island. Restoring the natural vegetation is important for maintaining habitat for the endemic animal population - six species of critter can be found only here, including the Catalina Island fox.

Your chances of seeing one of the foxes in the wild on a four-wheel- drive tour is remote, although six of them were squashed along the roads in one recent year before speed bumps were built in high-fox-traffic areas. In the early 1990s, some 1,300 foxes roamed the island, but an outbreak of canine distemper - introduced by an unvaccinated pet dog - sent their numbers plummeting. Through captive breeding, they've since made a comeback, and currently number about 300.

The bald eagle - not an endemic species but a longtime island resident - is also rebounding after illegal DDT dumping in the Pacific Ocean caused their eggshells to thin, depleting their numbers on the island.

The Cape Canyon Tour pays a visit to the conservancy's Middle Ranch facility deep in the interior, where foxes and eagles can be observed in captivity.

Tachi the fox ``was ill as a pup and had to be handled a lot,'' said the conservancy's Leslie Baer. ``The thing we didn't want to happen happened - she became accustomed to humans. If we introduced her back to the wild, she would probably approach cars and go into campgrounds.''

Also at Middle Ranch are Pimu and Lefty, two bald eagles who have had difficulty recovering from broken wings.

A steady diet of botany and zoology might cause eyes to glaze over on a four-hour tour, but Procedo, a 26-year island resident, also took us to ridge tops for sweeping views of sights like San Clemente Island, related anecdotes about the sometimes-isolated life of Catalina's populace (``the market will run out of bread, milk and tomatoes, but it never seems to run out of beer''), and passed on lore about movie-making on the island.

``See that point over there?'' he said at one juncture. ``That's where they shot 'Mutiny on the Bounty' (the 1935 classic). Those exotic Tahitian natives? They were girls from Avalon High School. There was one point around here when every woman on the island seemed to have a picture on the wall of herself with Clark Gable.''

All chatter abruptly halted, however, when we rounded a bend and came upon a bison bull, casually munching grass on a hilltop a short distance from the road. This is the big-game trophy for anyone taking an inland tour, it seems.

Of course the presence of this beast is utterly incongruous in this landscape - a four-legged quandary for the conservancy in its bid to restore the island's pre-entrepreneurial look.

But the buffalo, as it is commonly called, is also the unofficial mascot of Catalina tourism. ``Don't miss the chance to see our bison roaming free!'' cries the chamber of commerce's current visitors guide, which has photos of them throughout.

It's also hard to miss the buffalo mannequin outside Antonio's Pizzeria on Crescent Avenue - the one that presents the utterly unappetizing sight of a pizza plastered to its rear flank. And buffalo burgers are served at any number of establishments, notably the airport's Runway Cafe (though the meat is imported).

Muscat, the conservancy president, acknowledged that the bison has ``become a cultural icon for the island,'' yet a conservancy study determined that both Catalina and the bison themselves would do better if there were fewer of them here, so the herd was thinned a couple of years ago, with more than 100 relocated to Indian reservations in South Dakota. Their numbers are now kept to about 150.

One aspect of the study was of great relief to the local tourism honchos: The bison were actually benefiting the effort to eradicate non-native grasses ... by eating them. Whew. Because this may be an island invader, but it's a lovable one.

``There was a recognition that people really enjoyed seeing the bison,'' said Muscat. ``That's the challenge that we're faced with - trying to find that balance between human needs and nature's needs.''

Eric Noland, [phone]

eric.noland(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

CAPE CANYON TOUR: Offered by Discovery Tours, it runs from 9:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. and includes lunch at the airport. Cost is $89 per person, and advance reservations are recommended. [phone]; www.scico.com.

JEEP ECO-TOURS: Offered by the Catalina Island Conservancy, these naturalist-led tours are custom-tailored to your interests. They can be pricey if you're unable to gather a group together. The cost of the half- day tour is $495 for up to six people (that works out to $82.50 per person if you fill up the jeep). A full-day tour, which includes lunch, is $795 for up to six people. [phone], Ext. 0; www.catalinaconservancy.org (click on Recreation in the left menu).

INFORMATION: The Catalina Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau maintains a comprehensive Web site at www.catalina.com, which has links to transportation, lodging and tour options. The organization can be reached by phone at [phone]. A free visitors guide is available.

CAPTION(S):

8 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) One of Catalina Island's famed bison, above, is spotted on the Cape Canyon Tour, which now tackles the island's rugged terrain with a Unimog four-wheel-drive vehicle, top. The island's wildflowers have boomed with the heavy winter rains, notably lupine, left.

(4 -- 7) On Catalina Island, visitors scan the hills for wildlife, left; Tachi the fox relaxes at Middle Ranch, top, where some native animals are kept for their own safety; the bald eagle, above, is making a comeback thanks to the work of conservationists; and a scenic view of Avalon ends the four-hour Cape Canyon Tour, below.

(8) The Unimog is the vehicle of choice for the rough terrain on Catalina Island's Cape Canyon Tour.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

Catalina Island Conservancy

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IF YOU GO (see text)