It’s not very often that plants are removed from the Endangered Species List. Surprisingly, the US Navy is involved in the rescue. San Clemente Island, formerly overridden with tens of thousands of non-native goats, has 61 plant species on the California Native Plant Society inventory of Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Plants of California. Since 1934, when the Navy acquired the land and removed goats from the island, the plants have been recovering and expanding their territory. Both the San Clemente Island Lotus and the San Clemente Island Paintbrush will be reclassified as Threatened.
America’s Navy, story number NNS130829-37