So these plants are going to be out here for about two weeks.

And we'll take them in at night.

But since they'll be out without any protection of the actual greenhouse, we need to put them in a cage so we can get one from inside and protect them from the rats and the ravens.

I would want to eat like the little exposed acorns on them.

Sure.

Okay.

We can help with that.

The botany program found out we had a plant we thought was extricated.

Didn't exist on the island anymore.

Came back up because one of the wildlife biologists found it.

I said perfected.

They're great.

Amazing.

There's no way you're going to restore an entire island by planting everything everywhere.

So at our greenhouse here, seeds are collected.

They're propagated, they're grown out to plants, and then they're placed strategically at spot restoration areas.

The plants.

Are the sites doing really well?

Doctor Matt said that we will use, but not as do aside from the San Clemente loggerhead shrike, the subspecies that occurs only on this island.

These birds are housed in fed everything on San Clemente Island, so they're exposed to all the natural influences that a wild bird would be.

The Shrike Recovery program has had great success, bringing back approximately 70 breeding pairs in the wild by 2013.

Over the years, droughts along with El Nino and La Nina have reduced populations to as low as 22 breeding pairs.

However, with a wet winter in 2023, conservationists were able to raise 55 birds to full independence.

The birds that actually enjoy their cat food and eat it all the time, consistently they get more.

Did you do tens as you went?

I did tens over there.

They have behavioral training to help them better survive in the wild.

They get supplemental feeding.

So we are literally flying crickets and mice out here not only to feed our captive birds, but to supplement food for the wild birds once released.

Then we have a monitoring team from the Institute for Wildlife Studies.

That monitoring team goes out and is literally trying to count every single bird.

We're trying to put color bands on their legs so we can individually identify them.

When they do that, they pluck a feather.

So we get genetics on all these birds.

This species has not rebounded the way the bell sparrow has.

The Navy stepped in and began to specifically manage for this subspecies in about 1991, after survey showed their populations were very low.

We are the only place in the world with the San Clemente loggerhead shrike exists.

We would be very happy and we think the population would be sustainable at about 70 pairs.

The lowest number we had was only 14 birds in the wild, and that was as recent as 1998.

We have a captive flock of birds that are bread and produce young for release into the wild.