To Restore Catalina Island's Natural Ecosystem, State Weighs Proposal To Kill Off A Deer Species That's Been There For 100 Years

A proposal to use sharpshooters in helicopters to eliminate a non-native species of deer on Catalina Island has drawn the ire of some residents who call the plan "unethical," "brutal" and "unnecessary."

Controlling the mule deer population

The deer in question is the mule deer, which was introduced to the island by humans in the late 1920s. Without a natural predator, the deer population has ballooned to an estimated 2,000 today, according to the Catalina Island Conservancy.

The nonprofit, the oldest and largest private land trust in Southern California, has been managing about 88% of the island since the mid-1970s and of late has undertaken a major restoration project that includes growing native plants and trees while replacing invasive grasses that make the landscape vulnerable to the kind of wildfires seen recently in Lahaina.

"These [native] plants are much more resistant to burning. And what has happened is that the deer like to browse on the native species. So they get decimated and what grows instead and grows prolifically are these invasive grasses," said Whitney Latorre, the president and CEO of Catalina Island Conservancy.

The mule deers on Catalina Island.

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Courtesy of the Coalition Against the Slaughter of Catalina deer

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The organization, Latorre said, has been wrestling with the deer issue for at least a decade. Catalina has the state's longest running deer hunting season, she noted, but even that is insufficient to adequately manage the animal's population.

"They are an invasive, introduced species and for the long-term health and resiliency of the island, we really are talking about complete removal of the deer," she said.

The conservancy considered other methods — sterilization, fences, removal and the introduction of a predator — to control the population, but the island's rugged terrains, according to Latorre, made the first two options unfeasible, while the threat to the deer species and to the island's residents, respectively, make the last two ideas unsound.

Bringing in sharpshooters for the job

All that led the organization to landing on a solution of last resort: to hire sharpshooters to take out the entire deer population from the air. The outfit that is being considered for the job is the Connecticut-based nonprofit White Buffalo, Inc., which specializes in deer management.

The canyons of Catalina Island covered with lush flora on April 20, 2019. In May 2007 a bush fire broke and burned 4,750 acres (19 km2) of interior chaparral.

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Daniel Slim

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AFP via Getty Images

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Latorre said AR-15 style assault rifles with nonlead bullets would be used, and the shooting would be confined to "a limited number of hours, across a limited number of weeks within a whole year."

"We reached the methodology that we did because of the science, and we chose to work with a team of experts who have done this kind of work before and can do it effectively and efficiently, both for the humaneness to the deer, and also to minimize the impact on the residents of Avalon," Latorre added.

The organization said no shooting will take place in the town.

Reactions from island residents

Meanwhile, the proposal has riled up some residents on the island.

"We feel that this approach is inhumane, it's brutal, it's unethical, and it's not necessary," said Dianne Stone, vice president of the Catalina Island Humane Society, and a member of the Coalition Against the Slaughter of Catalina Deer.

For 30-some years, Stone has lived in Avalon, the only incorporated city on Catalina that makes up the majority of the island's population of an estimated 4,000 people. The island's tourism authority says more than 1 million people visit every year.

"They're talking about people shooting AR-15s from helicopters when people may be out hiking or may be in the vicinity," she said.

The coalition questions many of the conservancy's arguments, from the number of the existing deer (it pegs it as closer to 1,000), to abandoning hunting as a way to reduce the population. But above all, Stone takes issue with the all-or-nothing approach.

"We think that there is a number that [is] more than zero that that the island can comfortably accommodate," Stone said.

More than 13,000 people, she added, have signed a petition opposing the proposal so far.

What's next

The eradication plan is currently under review by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The department declined to offer a timeline for its completion, but told LAist in a statement: "The goal of the project is to restore ecosystem function and preserve Catalina’s unique and rare biodiversity, including some of the rarest plant species in our state and beyond."