National Park Visits Increase

Visits are up across all measures for the National Park Service, which celebrated its centennial in 2016. Offshore Santa Barbara, among the peaks that make up Channel Islands National Park, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands accounted for 10 percent of the increase in visits to the park. In person, the park saw 342,209 campers and day trippers, and the mainland center in Ventura had 20 percent more people drop by. Virtually, 10.7 million people logged onto the park’s online education programs ​— Channel Islands Live saw a 1,000 percent increase ​— ​wildlife webcams, and website pages. And nearly 2,000 volunteers donated the equivalent of 34 full-time hours.