Re: your May 22 article, “Catalina might lose funds to restore bald eagles”:

The Associated Press writer makes the following points to support her thesis that Catalina should retain its funding:

Catalina is bigger than Santa Cruz Island, the alternative site for use of the funds. Santa Cruz Island is more remote and isolated. Catalina Island has more than a million visitors a year who enjoy seeing the bald eagles there. Santa Cruz Island has only a handful of visitors a year. The DDT levels on Santa Cruz Island may be just as harmful as the levels on Catalina. Finally, the article refers to a “council” that will receive input until Monday. No address is given, but two Web sites are listed at the end of the article.

The AP and The Star should do better, especially since the Northern Channel Islands constitute the national park that is located in and/or near Ventura County.

As a kayak guide for the last 16 years who spends more than 100 days a year on Santa Cruz or one of the other islands in the park, I can tell you Santa Cruz Island is the biggest island off the California coast. It is located closer to the mainland than is Santa Catalina. Catalina may have a million visitors, but very few will see a bald eagle.

Santa Cruz Island averages more than 100 visitors a day from Easter to Thanksgiving — a very large handful! The environment on and around both islands has been and is being monitored for DDT and other pollutants. Santa Cruz has a significantly lower level of pollution.

The reintroduction of the bald eagle to Santa Cruz Island will have a significant additional advantage. It will help the island fox survive. The island fox is unique to Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands. It is an endangered species with only a very few breeding couples left in the wild. Bald eagles will drive off the golden eagles, which are a recent arrival on the Channel Islands and are the island foxes’ only predator.

Certainly the funds should go to the site where they are most likely to be successful and where they will do the most good: Santa Cruz Island and Channel Islands National Park!

— A. J. Chapman, Camarillo