Anacapa birds return

A California brown pelican flies over Anacapa Island. National Park Service officials are touting the results of a program to eradicate rats, which were preying on several species of animals.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Sea gulls are plentiful on Anacapa Island. The rat-eradication program cost about $3 million, with much of the funding coming from a conservation group, the American Trader Trustee Council.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

A cormorant nests on a cliff. Scripps’s murrelet -- a robin-sized bird that nests largely on Anacapa and Santa Barbara islands -- had been on the way to possible extinction before the rats were exterminated.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Kate Faulkner of the National Park Service leads a tour of Anacapa Island. To get rid of rats, officials had a helicopter shower the island with poisonous green pellets in 2001 and 2002.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

A California brown pelican, left, and cormorants sit on a rock at Anacapa Island.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Kate Faulkner of the National Park Service leads a tour of Anacapa Island.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)