When you think of bison, where do you think of? Is it the Great Plains of South Dakota, or the hazy surface of the Great Salt Lake?
Sure, these are great places to see bison, icons of the American West landscape. But before you buy a plane ticket, head over to Catalina Island just off the coast of Los Angeles. There’s a bona-fide herd of bison there, thanks to a famous Western author and a blossoming film industry!
Why does Catalina Island have bison?
A bit about Catalina Island
If you haven’t already seen them, then it might come as a surprise that there are some islands just off the coast of Los Angeles! Eight islands, in fact, and they are officially the easternmost islands in the Pacific Island group. These make up the Channel Islands of California archipelago.
These Channel Islands are believed to be some of the oldest areas of human settlement in North America, with evidence of human life dating back as far as 13,000 years ago! The islands are also the ancestral home of the Tongva and Chumash indigenous peoples who were, after the arrival of Spanish settlers, displaced and run off the islands.
Today, the eight islands serve as marine sanctuaries, national parks, wildlife preserves and research stations, as well as U.S. military training sites.
Santa Catalina Island, usually just called Catalina or Catalina Island, is the easternmost island of the archipelago and the closest to the City of Los Angeles.
Just like the other islands, Catalina island’s first European visitors were Spaniards in the early 19th century. Until the early 20th century, the islands were sparsely populated and mostly used for fishing, otter hunting, smuggling or gold digging. It wasn’t until real estate developer George Shatto bought the island in 1887 and began developing the small town of Avalon that the wildlife-saturated islands started to evolve into a tourist destination.
Avalon, which is now where 90% of the island’s current population lives, grew as investors realized the potential that island had to offer, especially after chewing -gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. invested heavily into the town’s infrastructure. By the mid-1920s, Catalina Island was a fully fledged tourist and adventure destination.
The making of a Western
Enter Zane Grey, one of the most well-known pioneers of the Western literature genre and avid adventurer. His contributions to the world of Westerns include over 90 books with over 40 million copies sold, as well as a handful of movie adaptations and his own motion picture company. Well-known actors and directors such as Victor Fleming, Henry Hathaway, Randolph Scott and Shirley Temple got their start on the many Zane Grey book-to-film adaptations.
Grey was born in Ohio in 1872 and grew to love sports and outdoor recreation. He attended the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship and studied to be a dentist, following in his father’s footsteps. After just ten years of practicing dentistry, though, he gave up the career to pursue his interest in writing and travelling through the American West. His 1912 novel “Riders of the Purple Sage” catapulted him into fame and fortune.
In 1905, Grey and his new wife honeymooned on Catalina Island, where he fell in love with the wildlife, the fishing and the landscape. He spent more and more time on the island and eventually built a house on a hill overlooking Avalon.
Santa Catalina’s gentle hills and wild landscape provided the perfect backdrop for the Westerns Grey so loved to write, and when his books turned into movie adaptations, they also served as the literal backdrop.
In 1924, Zane filmed two movies on Catalina Island: “The Vanishing American” and “The Thundering Herd.” Now, we’re not one-hundred percent sure which movie required it, but at some point Grey had 14 American bison shipped to the island to provide a backdrop for his Western movie.
The reason we’re not exactly sure which movie the bison were brought in for is because “The Vanishing American” featured not a single furry four-legged guest star. The only other movie filmed there at the time was “The Thundering Herd,” but there’s no hard evidence that the bison got credits in that film, either.
Either way, extracting the bison proved to be too costly and troublesome, so the herd was simply left on the island.
This was back in 1924, and for nearly 70 years the herd was left to roam the island. Eventually the herd grew to around 500 in the mid 1990s, and at that point The Catalina Island Conservancy decided to better regulate the herd. After all, the island’s ecology could only support less than 200 of the large grazers.
The herd was thinned out to around 150, with the extra either sent to slaughterhouses or to spend the remainder of their lives on the plains of South Dakota. Today the herd is closely monitored to ensure they do not exceed the island’s resources. The females are even given a form of birth control so that they continue their, um, activities without interference with social hierarchy and natural instinct.
Where to see the bison today
The bison of Catalina Island are free-roaming and very much undomesticated, so encounters with them are best experienced from a distance. They are visible from the many driving, hiking and biking routes through the island, and the Catalina Island Conservancy offers tours on the bison and their new island home.
If you live in our Southern California apartments, then Catalina Island is the perfect day trip or weekend retreat, especially for all you Western fans!
Enjoy!
Pin it!
Featured photo courtesy Pixabay/WikiImages
Colleen Ford is a South African who now lives on Oahu in Hawai'i. She loves to travel, camp, spearfish and hike. She's also part of a super cool canoe club and is pretty decent at it. Colleen enjoys Star Wars and also not being cold ever.
View All Posts by Colleen Ford