Conservation plan again targets Catalina's deer

Nonprofit seeks to eliminate island’s nonnative population by using contracted hunters

- Lila Seidman

A MULE DEER DOE walks on a hillside behind the Descanso Beach Club in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island.

Santa Catalina Island’s mule deer are back in the crosshairs.

This month, the Catalina Island Conservancy announced a plan to rid the landscape of its entire nonnative deer population using contracted hunters, saying the animals increase the risk of wildfire.

Last year, the conservancy—which manages 88% of the island — scrapped a proposal to shoot the deer from helicopters, facing community outrage and opposition from local representatives.

This time around, professional contractors would shoot the island’s estimated 2,165 deer on the ground with rifles, said Pepe Barton, communications director for the conservancy.

The latest iteration of the project is stirring up familiar ire, with some expressing a deep connection with, and concern for humane treatment of, the deer. But the conservancy says the deer must go in order to restore the health of the island.

"When deer are eating native plants, those are being replaced by invasive annual grasses, and then those dry out quickly and burn easily," Barton said. "And then as a burn comes through, the native plants that are trying to grow back are eaten down again.