"Aerial view" by U.S. National Park Service , public domain
Santa Barbara IslandTrail Guide |
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National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Channel Islands National Park
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Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
Trail
1
Arch Point Trail Stops
1
Signal Peak Trail Stops
.25 miles
Arch Point
4
Shag Rock
North
Webster
Point
3
Elephant
Seal Cove
5
2
2
6 North
Peak
Landing
Cove
1
1
3
7
4
5
Sea Lion
Rookery
Signal
Peak
6
7
Cat
Canyon
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Webster Point
How To Use This Trail Guide
This trail guide provides 7 interpretive
stops along the 2.3 mile loop to Arch
Point or the 3 mile loop to Signal Peak.
The stops and information are the same
for either trail.
Please see the adjacent map for specific
stop locations for both trails. Arch Point
stops are indicated with black circles,
while Signal Peak stops have white
circles.
Also, please note that many of the topics
covered are applicable to any island
location. No matter what trail you
choose to hike, take this guide along to
learn about the rich natural and cultural
history of Santa Barbara Island.
For a more detailed hiking map, please
see the “Hiking Santa Barbara Island”
bulletin available at the orientation sign
near the visitor center.
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Nowhere Else on Earth
Location: Orientation Sign near the Visitor Center
Close to the mainland, yet worlds apart,
Santa Barbara Island, along with the
other Channel Islands, is home to plants
and animals that are found nowhere else
on Earth. As on the Galápagos Islands
of South America, the isolation of the
Channel Islands has allowed evolution
to proceed independently, fostering the
development of nearly 150 plants and
animals endemic, or unique, to these
islands. Santa Barbara Island is home to
14 of these species and some, like the
rare Santa Barbara Island live-forever, are
found only on this island.
coastal mainland has seen extensive
development, the Channel Islands remain
undeveloped. The islands’ separation
from the mainland by up to 60 miles of
an often turbulent ocean has limited and
directed human use and occupation for
thousands of years. And this limited use
continues today, giving us a chance to
see coastal southern California as it once
was.
So step back in time and experience
Santa Barbara Island’s isolation as you
walk to Arch Point or up to Signal Peak.
It’s like nowhere else on Earth.
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Isolation has also played a major role
in shaping human activities on the
islands. While the southern California
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Preserving the Past
Location: Trail Junction with Arch Point Trail
An island ranch is a study in self-reliance. With no stores, phones…everything has to
be fashioned from whatever is on hand; it’s the art of making do.
While the isolated island offered ranchers
several advantages over the mainland,
including no predators and the world’s
best fence (the ocean), it created special
challenges as well. Supplying such a
remote outpost was probably the most
considerable of these. The transportation
of supplies and stock on and off the
island was always an adventure—the
distance to the mainland, rough seas,
and high expense made it very difficult.
However, ranchers adapted to the
challenges of island life through selfreliance and, as one ranch foreman
wrote, “learning to make do with what
[they] had.”
No one was better suited to this island
life than Alvin Hyder, who lived on Santa
Barbara Island along with his extended
family from 1914 to 1922. According to
Alvin’s son, Buster, “The ol’ man got
up with a lantern and went to bed with
a lantern. Eight hours was just getting’
started. He worked all the time. He was
a hard-working man who never knew
when to stop.”
In order to produce income and be as
self-sufficient as possible, the Hyders
developed a diverse operation: they
raised various crops (barley, corn, and
potatoes), maintained a vegetable garden,
and imported different animals, including
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Gretel Ehrlich, Cowboy Island: Farewell to a Ranching Legacy
Alvin Hyder family on Santa Barbara Island.
sheep from Santa Cruz Island, horses,
mules, pigs, goats, rabbits, chickens,
ducks, geese and turkeys.
Not all of these enterprises succeeded.
“Too much guano in the ground…
burned [the potatoes].” High winds
wreaked havoc on the chickens and
geese: “We watched more gosh darn
chickens and turkeys and our stuff blow
out in that ocean—blow ‘em clear out.”
One terrible year, the Hyders even lost
their entire hay harvest: “We sold our hay
to this guy [in San Pedro], and he went
bankrupt. We lost all of our feed and all
our work…we got skunked.”
Raising sheep for wool and meat
eventually became the mainstay of the
Hyder operations. But even this had
its challenges. One of the biggest was
transporting the sheep and supplies to
National Park Service 3
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Remaining Hyder Ranch buildings as of 1946.
Cleve Hyder family home.
the top of the island. To accomplish this
difficult task, the Hyders constructed
a wooden track with a sled that ran
between the Landing Cove and the
house. A horse pulled the sled up the
track, and people lowered it by hand. The
horse, named Dan, listened for a signal
from below to start hauling, and stopped
when the load was exactly at the barn.
challenge. Since the island had no
springs or flowing water, the Hyders
constructed a system of reservoirs.
They built two large concrete cisterns
at the house and brought water from
the mainland on Nora II in twenty-five
50-gallon barrels. This water was then
pumped to the house reservoir. They also
collected water from the building roofs
and constructed two water catchment
basins on the island for the livestock and
crops. To ensure water quality, Buster had
the job of removing dead mice from the
drinking water supply every day.
To supplement the family income,
Alvin ran rum during Prohibition
along the Southern California coast
and transported animals and supplies
to and from other islands aboard his
boat, Nora. The family also fished and
collected sea gull eggs which were boiled
because they were so oily. Occasionally,
hunger and lack of supplies would drive
family members to eating mice and
brushing their teeth with green coreopsis
branches, a practice Buster describes
below:
When [the coreopsis] were green I
used to break them off and scrub my
teeth with them. No kiddin’. We had
no toothbrushes…and no toothpaste.
So I used to clean my teeth with the
things. It’s just like eatin’ an apple,
and it keeps your teeth slick and clean.
Maybe that’s why I got all my teeth still.
The lack of fresh water also posed a
4 Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
Despite these actions, water remained
a precious resource as Buster recalled,
“You had to limit your drinking water. It
had to last a year. Then it got stagnant.
Many times when it was raining I’d drink
water out of horse tracks. No kiddin’.
Boy, it was hard to drink it. But when
you don’t have anything else, you have to
drink it.”
Besides teh lack of fresh water, the
Hyders also lacked natural resources for
construction materials. With no trees on
the island, all supplies for facilities had
to be brought from the mainland. The
Hyders built a two-room wooden ranch
house above the Landing Cove for the
families of both Alvin and his brother,
Clarence, to share. A barn, stable, and
With all of these difficulties and setbacks,
it may come as no surprise that the
Hyders finally decided to leave the island
in 1922, after years of hard work and
frustration. They tore down the buildings
for lumber and removed their animals
with the exception of the rabbits and a
mule. The Hyders were the only family
to permanently reside on this isolated
island.
After the Hyders, only government
activity occurred on the island. From
1942 through 1946, the island served
as a military coastal lookout station,
which consisted of a lookout tower,
radio antenna, roads, boat landing with
tramway, and barracks. A staff of seven
men on 24-hour duty kept a lookout for
all passing vessels and submarines. Two
unmanned navigational light towers were
also constructed, one of which is still
operational and can be seen near Arch
Point.
As you might expect, military life was a
little different on an isolated island. Cal
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
a chicken coop were located nearby.
Alvin’s other brother, Cleve, and his wife
built their own small house half way
up from the Landing Cove. At one time
around 1915 some 15 people lived on this
little island.
Landing cove with tramway and Quonset huts.
Reynolds remembered his 1942 duty time
at the station as “very hang loose . . . not
a lot of regimentation, we stood our four
on and eight off . . . it was a small island,
there wasn’t a lot to do on it.” The men
worked two weeks on the island and then
received one week of leave. They kept
chickens and rabbits in pens, and fished
and tended lobster pots: “[we] always
had hot buttered lobster.” Even though
the Navy had constructed a water storage
tank and pumped water up from the
dock, water was still scarce and the men
were unable to keep a garden. A weekly
boat brought supplies and transferred
men on and off the island. “It was a good
life,” Reynolds recalled, “an enjoyable
experience.”
Even today, the isolation of this island
still affects visitors and the National Park
Service. Public boat trips for park visitors
are limited to only a few days each
month during the summer and visitors
must bring (and carry up to the top of
the island) all their own food and water.
Park staff must import food and water as
well, and have established a solar power
system for energy. Like so many who
visited and resided here before, we must
learn to make do with what we have.
Radio antenna (left) and lookout tower, 1942.
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Window into Their World
Location: Halfway to Arch Point or Halfway to the
Saddle between North and Signal Peaks
Archeologists identify these sites as
“middens,” debris piles containing
remnants of past societies—the Tongva,
the Chumash, and their ancestors. The
island’s 30 or so midden sites suggest
that occupation dates back at least
4,000 years, and probably even more
than that. However, due to the lack of
a steady supply of fresh water and the
few terrestrial resources, permanent
settlements were never established on
Santa Barbara Island. The island was
instead used on a seasonal basis and as a
stopover between Santa Catalina and San
Nicolas Islands.
These midden sites offer us a window
into the Tongva and Chumash world. By
examining these sites, archeologists can
piece together a picture of the ancient
island life of these peoples. The Tongva
and Chumash were skilled craftspeople
and seafarers, with a vast knowledge of
the world around them and how to use
it for their survival. The predominance
of shells and fish bones within the
middens reveals that they subsisted
primarily on fish, shellfish, and other
marine organisms. They often plied the
Santa Barbara Channel in search of this
rich variety of marine food, traveling in
tomols (canoes) made of redwood or
6 Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
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Throughout your hike today, you may
discover tiny fragments of broken shells
glittering in the soil or piles of shells
falling out from the cliff edge. How did
these shells get there? It must be the
ocean at work—or is it?
Island midden site.
pine planks caulked with tar from natural
seeps.
These middens also reveal that other
items not available in this isolated
island environment had to be traded for
with villages on the mainland or other
islands. One of the principal products
manufactured and traded by the
islanders were shell beads, which were
used as currency of trade in the Tongva
and Chumash areas and throughout
California.
To produce these beads, chert microdrills
were used to bore holes in pieces of
olivella snail shells. Chert, a hard, durable
silica rock, was found in considerable
quantities on Santa Cruz Island. Because
Eastern Santa Cruz Island had chert of
the proper type and quality needed for
tool construction, this location became
the center for manufacturing chert
microdrills. One particular site contains
evidence of the highest density of
microdrill production in North America.
Santa Barbara Island and the other
Channel Islands were not isolated
enough to protect the island Tongva and
Chumash from the diseases the Spanish
explorers and missionaries brought
with them as they began colonizing
California in the late 1700s. By the early
1800s, the island Tongva and Chumash
had been devastated by measles and
other introduced epidemics, as well as
by drought and the disruption of their
trade-based economy. The last of the
islanders would leave their traditional
island home by the mid-1800s.
Although much of the islander’s history
and way of life has been lost, enough
remains to remind us of this unique
part of Santa Barbara Island’s past.
These midden sites, along with today’s
descendants of the island Tongva and
Chumash, remind us how important and
sacred these isolated islands are.
Taking from or disturbing archeological
sites or artifacts is a violation of state and
federal law. The archeological sites around
the Channel Islands are a testament to the
importance of the Tongva, Chumash and
other American Indians. Archeological
sites are sacred to Tongva and Chumash
peoples today, are protected by federal law,
and are a vital nonrenewable scientific
resource. Please help us in protecting and
preserving this rich part of California’s
heritage.
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Return of the Natives
Location: Arch Point or Saddle between North and Signal Peaks
Ellie Yun Hui Tu
eliminating most of the native vegetation
and creating open, disturbed, and eroded
soils that allowed nonnative plants to
flourish. Once established, these hardier
nonnatives outcompeted the natives for
limited soil and moisture, due to their
longer germination and growth cycles
and ability to withstand grazing and
browsing by livestock.
Santa Barbara Island live-forever
As you walk the island, you may notice
the fields of grains and grasses that
dominate the landscape. This was not
always the case. What was once an
island covered with coastal sage and
bluff scrub, maritime cactus scrub, and
native grasslands, has given way to
nonnative, European grazing grasses
and an assortment of weeds, including
iceplants, oats, bromes, foxtails, thistles,
and mustard. Today, about a third of the
plant species found on Santa Barbara
Island are nonnative.
During the early 1900s, native vegetation
was cut, burned, and plowed for
farming. In addition, sheep, goats, and
rabbits severely overgrazed the island,
8 Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
The NPS is working to restore the
island’s native vegetation, and special
focus is being placed on the 14 plants
endemic to the islands—those found
nowhere else in the world. Four of
these occur only on Santa Barbara
Island: the Santa Barbara Island liveforever, buckwheat, cream cups, and
island chicory. To ensure the survival of
these unique species and encourage the
recovery of the island’s native vegetation,
all non-native animals have been
removed and the effort to plant native
species and control nonnative weeds is
underway.
The recovery of native plants has so
far been remarkable. Many are now
spreading beyond the buried seed banks
and steep canyon walls and cliffs, where
they remained protected from grazing,
and are reestablishing themselves slowly
throughout the island.
This reestablishment of native plants has
also aided in the recovery of endemic
deer mice, night lizards, and nesting land
birds by providing important habitat.
Today, there are 14 land birds that
Charles Drost
timhaufphotography.com
The recovery of native island vegetation.
The endemic island night lizard.
nest annually on the island. Three of
these—the horned lark, orange-crowned
warbler, and house finch—are endemic
subspecies found only on Santa Barbara
Island.
However, ecological restoration has
helped populations of the endemic island
night lizard recover to the point that it
was removed from the Federal List of
Threatened and Endangered Wildlife in
2014. This species only occurs on Santa
Barbara, San Nicolas, and San Clemente
Islands.
Unfortunately, the island’s recovery
did not come soon enough for the
endemic Santa Barbara Island song
sparrow, one of the smallest forms of
song sparrow and differentiated from
its mainland relative by its very gray
back. The destruction of this sparrow’s
sagebrush and coreopsis nesting habitat
and the presence of feral cats led to the
extinction of this species in the 1960s. It
is now lost forever.
You can help with this recovery of island
natives by cleaning your boots and other
possessions, such as backpacks, before
you visit. This ensures that you don’t
accidentally introduce nonnative species
to the island. Together we can guarantee
the return of native plants and animals
throughout Santa Barbara Island.
National Park Service 9
Geographical Isolation
Location: Halfway between Arch Point and North Peak or
Halfway between the Saddle and Signal Peak
As you near the ridgeline with the island’s
two highest points, 635-foot Signal Peak
and 562-foot North Peak, take a moment
to look across the island. You may
notice the broad, elevated coastal plain
stretching in front of you, one of six on
the island. These plains are remnants of
what geologists call “marine terraces”—
ancient shorelines carved flat by wave
action and exposed through changes in
sea level and tectonic uplift of the land. A
future marine terrace (called a wave-cut
platform) is being created today by wave
erosion at the base of the sea cliffs.
The Channel Islands’ first shoreline
was created around five million years
ago, when compressional forces, caused
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Erosional forces at work on Webster Point.
by the ramming of Baja California into
southern California, resulted in the
folding and faulting of marine sediments
and volcanic rocks (deposited between
15–30 million years ago) and the eventual
uplift of the islands. These compressional
forces are still ongoing, making this area
Aerial view showing Santa Barbara Island’s marine terraces.
10 Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
Although never connected to the mainland by a land bridge, the four northern islands were
once part of the Pleistocene “super island” known as Santarosae, nearly four times as large as
the combined areas of the modern Channel Islands. The dark-shaded area on the map depicts
the ancient coast of Santarosae and California around 20,000 years ago when sea level was
approximately 350 feet lower than it is today. As the ice sheets and glaciers melted and the
sea level rose, only the highest parts of Santarosae remained as modern islands. (Adapted
from a map by geologist Tom Rockwell)
geologically active today—Santa Barbara
Island, as well as the other Channel
Islands, continues to be uplifted.
Ever since these compressional forces
caused the islands to emerge from the
sea, the Channel Islands have been
separated from the mainland. And unlike
the four northern islands, which were
once joined as a single, “super island”
known as Santarosae, Santa Barbara
Island has never been connected to
another neighboring island.
For decades, however, scientists assumed
that the northern islands (Anacapa,
Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel
Islands) were connected to the mainland
by a land bridge, but as bathymetric
information (or topography) of the sea
floor improved, it revealed that even
during periods of lowest sea levels
(about 17,000 years ago), the islands still
remained isolated by at least four miles of
ocean. It is this continuous geographical
isolation that has shaped island life.
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An Ocean Park and Sanctuary
Location: Trail Junction with Elephant Seal Cove or
Bluff below Signal Peak overlooking Sutil Island
From this vantage point, one has the
opportunity to gaze upon another part of
the park: the marine environment. One
nautical mile of water around each island
is part of Channel Islands National Park,
and the six nautical miles around each
island form Channel Islands National
Marine Sanctuary.
Within this ocean realm, one often sees
or hears California sea lions, northern
elephant seals, or harbor seals. The
island’s isolated shoreline (especially
below the Elephant Seal Cove, Webster
Point, and Sea Lion Rookery Overlooks)
offers these pinnipeds an ideal
combination of safety from predators
and freedom from human disturbance,
making the island an ideal place to rest,
breed, and pup.
But even Santa Barbara Island’s isolation
could not always protect these and other
sea mammals from human predation. As
early as the late 1700’s, fur hunters were
exploiting sea otters, fur seals, elephant
seals, and sea lions for their fur, hides
and oil. Sea mammal hunting ended in
the early 1900’s and laws like the Marine
Mammal Protection Act now protect
these species. Today, elephant seals, sea
lions, and harbor seals regularly breed
along the island’s shoreline. In this
isolated environment, their protected
populations are recovering from
centuries of slaughter. Unfortunately, the
sea otter has not yet returned.
These pinnipeds, along with over 800
12 Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
Kelp forest, Santa Barbara Island.
other marine species, also depend on
the extensive kelp forests found in these
waters for food, shelter, and protection—
from foraging nudibranchs, to grazing
snails, to fish seeking refuge, to whales
feasting on plankton. Kelp is a type of
algae that, under ideal conditions (cold,
nutrient-rich water), is one of the fastest
growing organisms on Earth—it can
grow two feet per day.
While urban and industrial development
has altered much of the southern
California coastal mainland, the isolated
islands contain the most undisturbed
stretches of coastline in this region,
providing some of the best conditions for
kelp forests and their inhabitants.
Kelp forests don’t just benefit marine
species—they benefit us as well. Not
only do we eat some of the animals
that depend upon the kelp forest, but
everyday products like ice cream, salad
dressing, and even toothpaste also use
a little bit of seaweed as well. Kelp is
harvested for a natural ingredient called
algin, which is used as a suspending,
stabilizing, emulsifying, gel-producing,
and film-forming additive in more than
70 commercial products. In addition,
marine plants and algae such as kelp
provide Earth with 80 percent of its
oxygen.
Despite these benefits, human activities
have placed the kelp forest and its
inhabitants in jeopardy. Pollution and
over-harvesting of marine species have
altered the kelp forest ecosystem, and
kelp forests in southern California today
cover less than half the area they covered
at the turn of the 20th century.
problems have been corrected.
Within the park and sanctuary, this
network of MPAs provides a refuge
for sea life, as well as opportunities for
recreation, education, and science. In
11 marine reserves (including one on
Santa Barbara Island’s southeastern side),
recreational fishing and commercial
harvesting are prohibited; limited fishing
and harvesting are allowed in two marine
conservation areas. The MPAs total 318
square miles, the largest such network
off the continental United States and an
important part of a larger, worldwide
effort to conserve natural, historic, and
cultural marine resources.
However, with the establishment
of marine protected areas (MPAs),
improved pollution controls, fishing
regulations, and increased research
and public education, some of these
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An Ideal Isolated Home
Location: Trail Junction with Webster Point or near Cat Canyon
The ever-present western gulls and
graceful pelicans can often be sighted
soaring throughout the island, especially
along the steep, rugged volcanic cliffs.
These cliffs, their numerous caves,
and the rest of Santa Barbara Island’s
coastline and neighboring islets are home
to 13 different species of nesting seabirds
and shorebirds. Ashy storm-petrels,
Brandt’s cormorants, Cassin’s auklets,
pigeon guillemots, black oystercatchers,
and one of the world’s largest colonies of
Scripps’s murrelets all make their home
here.
Santa Barbara Island, the other Channel
Islands, and all of their associated islets
and offshore rocks comprise one of the
largest breeding centers on the west
coast for seabirds and shorebirds. Their
isolation and freedom from predators
and human disturbance, as well as the
abundance of food in the cold, nutrientrich ocean waters surrounding them,
make them an ideal place for marine
birds to breed and rear their young.
However, the island’s isolation was not
able to protect some species of seabirds
from human impacts. The destruction
of native vegetation, importing of
non-native species, gathering of eggs,
disturbance of rookeries, and the spread
of pesticides in the marine environment
have all been detrimental.
During the 1960s, the pesticide DDT
nearly caused the extinction of the
California brown pelican as a breeding
14 Santa Barbara Island Trail Guide
California brown pelican
species on the west coast of the United
States. In 1970, only 552 nesting attempts
were made on Anacapa Island (the largest
colony on the West coast of the United
States) and just one chick survived. On
October 13, 1970, the brown pelican was
listed as an endangered species.
Cassin’s auklets were once so abundant
on Santa Barbara Island that in 1863 it
was recorded that “they had undermined
almost every part of the soft, earthy
surface with their burrows.” Between
Today, these species are gradually
recovering now that their isolated island
home is protected within Channel
Islands National Park. Through
monitoring and restoration programs,
the park and its partners are working
to conserve critical nesting habitat and
to protect the integrity of the island
and marine ecosystems that support 90
percent of southern California’s seabird
populations. On Santa Barbara Island,
these efforts have focused on restoring
seabird nesting habitat, removing
feral cats and non-native vegetation,
revegetating with native plants, installing
nest boxes, and closing areas to protect
nesting seabirds.
The most notable results of these efforts
have been the successful recovery of
the California brown pelican and its
removal from the endangered species list
in 2009, and Santa Barbara Island once
more supporting the largest number of
breeding seabirds on any of the Channel
Islands.
timhaufphotography.com
1897 and 1908, cats were introduced to
the island, and by 1911, it was reported
that the breeding colony had been
entirely abandoned. To make matters
even worse, the cats devastated the
island’s large Scripps’s murrelet colony as
well—biologists found only one egg.
Webster Point
Park Protection
In 1938, Santa Barbara Island was
proclaimed a national monument to
protect, preserve, and teach us about
the island’s fragile resources and unique
past. This distinction was reaffirmed and
strengthened in 1980, when the island
was included in the newly established
Channel Islands National Park. By
understanding these resources and the
role isolation plays on these islands, the
National Park Service can preserve them
for future generations to study and enjoy.
The National Park Service needs your
help as well. We encourage you to
explore and learn more about Santa
Barbara Island and the rest of the
Channel Islands—but don’t stop there.
In recognizing the importance of these
islands, take your awareness to the action
level. Make every effort to preserve the
plants, animals, and artifacts found not
only within this park, but throughout the
world as well.
Scripps’s murrelet chick
National Park Service 15
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Channel Islands National Park
1901 Spinnaker Drive
Ventura, CA 93001
805.658.5730
nps.gov/chis
2015, 1st edition
Written and designed by Derek Lohuis
Printed on 100%
recycled paper.
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