The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has approved controversial plans to kill nearly 2,000 deer on Catalina Island, despite recent opposition from Los Angeles County officials. 

The department approved the Catalina Island Conservancy’s restoration management permit, a wide-ranging plan for the island’s future that includes installing native plants, restoring soil and water, and tracking species like the island fox and native birds — all relatively noncontroversial. But the plan to hire specialized hunters to shoot and kill deer has become a particular flash point, touching on tensions over fire prevention, nonnative species and a private landowner versus public officials. 

Santa Catalina Island is technically one of the eight Channel Islands, but it isn’t among the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park (the other two islands, San Clemente and San Nicolas, are owned by the U.S. Navy). Instead, Catalina Island is almost entirely owned and managed by the nonprofit Catalina Island Conservancy, the legacy of chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., who purchased almost all of the former Santa Catalina Island Company in 1919. Wrigley built up hotels and infrastructure on the island, and his descendants later deeded their shares of the island to the conservancy, a private land trust they’d established. 

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

FILE: Two Harbors is a small island village on Santa Catalina Island in California. 

The conservancy refers to its massive, multi-decade restoration plan as “Operation Protect Catalina Island,” noting that invasive plants and animals, climate change and long drought periods are increasing wildfire risk and threatening natural resources. “This is Catalina Island’s survival plan,” states the project website. 

According to the conservancy, a key part of that survival is systemically removing deer, which, while native to mainland California, were not historically found on the islands, and were instead brought over starting in the 1920s. The deer munch on native seedlings before they get a chance to grow, which “weakens soils, depletes the natural supply of........

© SFGate