Author dives into the Sespe River

The Sespe Wild: Southern California's Last Free River, by Bradley John Monsma, University of Nevada Press, $24.95

Bradley John Monsma's excellent, well-researched The Sespe Wild covers a range of topics centered on the natural history of the Sespe but also including Chumash rock art sites, the industrialization of the Sespe's southeastern fringes by oil and gas production and the controversies about Sespe dams.

The Sespe, being the 55 miles of Sespe Creek and its surrounding watershed in Los Padres National Forest, is a haven for wildness. The most serious intrusion, not covered by this book, is the nonnative species that threaten the historic balance of life both in the riparian corridor and in the creek itself.

The Sespe Wild starts off with the recent history of the California condor, beginning with the pioneering field research conducted by Carl Koford, whose work led in 1947 to the creation of the Sespe Condor Sanctuary.

Monsma looks ahead to a looming development battle-Tejon Ranch, a cattle ranch on the verge of transformation into a new city's worth of subdivisions. The question is whether condors will still use this flight corridor to the Sierras as they have done for centuries after this open space sprouts thousands of ranchette homes.

Chapter two addresses the reintroduction of big horn sheep to the Sespe, which began in 1985. The most successful herd lives close to the Sespe Hotsprings in the heart of the Sespe Wilderness. With sheep scat visible all over the place, this is clearly a good home for the big horn.

Until they were made extinct around a century ago by a combination of hunting and strychnine, grizzly bears were very much at home in the Sespe Wilderness, feasting on the then plentiful annual runs of steelhead. Monsma recounts several tales of the Chumash and the grizzly bear, including fascinating accounts of 'bear people' as told to Chumash ethnographer, J. P. Harrington.

Chapter five delves into the 80-year period in the 20th century when engineers and water districts planned to dam Sespe Creek. The closest call was in the late 1960s when a Ventura County ballot measure actually sealed the fate of Sespe Creek to remain free of tall dams-by a mere 39 votes. The signing of the Condor Range & Rivers Act in 1992 has made it now highly unlikely that the Sespe will ever be dammed.

Oil extraction has also retreated in recent years, mostly thanks to the Condor Sanctuary. Strict regulations imposed by the County of Ventura have meant that all the big names in oil are moving on to more profitable locations.

Monsma has a good grasp of the challenges involved in the recovery of the endangered southern steelhead. One error, however, is his not realizing that the fish ladder for steelhead at the Freeman Diversion Dam on the Santa Clara River is part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. Never having been known to provide passage to more than a handful of upstream migrating steelhead in the past 10 years or so, this fish ladder has suffered from both inadequate design and poor operation.

Monsma also covers kayaking the Sespe. It's a very dangerous one, and the author hasn't attempted it. But a few people have and some of their experiences are recounted here.

The Sespe Wild partly fills what has been a void: serious nature writing about the Sespe. Don't look for it to guide you to particular locations. Don't look to it for a detailed history of the last 15 years of conservation battles. Look to it as a book to enhance your sense of wonder at nature's magnificence in a place called the Sespe.

Alasdair Coyne is Conservation Director of Keep Sespe Wild.