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Typically quiet Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, erupted in tumult last fall over a bold proposal to kill all the deer on the island using sharpshooters in helicopters.
The Catalina Island Conservancy, the nonprofit group that owns 88 percent of the island, said that the 2,000 deer on the island were ravaging native plants, hurting the ecology of the island and making it highly susceptible to fires. But many Catalina residents found the proposal shocking and inhumane, and began signing petitions and staging protests.
Now, conservancy leaders have stepped back from their plan.
Sort of.
In response to concerns from residents and from elected leaders in Los Angeles County, the conservancy said this week that it had dropped its proposal to kill the deer by aerial hunting. But its scientists are considering other ways to get rid of them.
“We’re still dedicated to doing this — we have to remove these deer in order to restore Catalina Island,” Lauren Dennhardt, the lead conservationist on the island, told me on Thursday. “We know that, out of any conservation action that should happen in California, this is the one that’s going to have the greatest biodiversity impact. So we’re dedicated to getting it done, even if the path bends and weaves a little bit.”
(Eradication projects to remove invasive species from fragile island ecosystems are not unusual: There have been more than 1,000 around the world, including some on Catalina.)
Mule deer are not native to Catalina; they were introduced nearly a century ago for sport hunting. And there is no natural predator on the island to control their numbers. According to Dennhardt, the deer are messing with the rare animal and plant life on Catalina, which is part of an archipelago so biodiverse that it is often called North America’s Galápagos.
Dennhardt wouldn’t say which removal method the conservancy would adopt, but she did say that some options were off the table. Relocating all the deer isn’t feasible, because it would be all but impossible to reach deer hiding in ravines, and the animals often die from stress when they are captured, she said. A sterilization program would face similar challenges. And introducing predators like mountain lions or coyotes to kill the deer would not be smart either, since it would mean new nonnative animals roaming the island, she said.
Based on an analysis released by the conservancy last year, that leaves two possible strategies: fencing off parts of the island to keep deer away from precious plants, or recreational hunting. Hunting is allowed on the island, but the conservancy has said hunters kill only about 200 deer a year, far too few to solve the problem. Nearly every deer on the island would need to be killed in a single season to prevent their population numbers from rebounding.
The Coalition to Save Catalina Island Deer, a group of Catalina residents and animal advocates, said they considered the scrapping of the helicopter hunting plan a victory, and would keep fighting to prevent deer eradication on the island.
The group had support from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, which unanimously approved a letter last month to California Department of Fish and Wildlife calling aerial killing “inhumane and drastic, and potentially dangerous to the public,” and asking the department to deny the conservancy’s application for a required approval.
“I appreciate the conservancy for listening to the serious concerns people had about this plan, especially from people living on the island,” Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes Catalina and who drafted the letter, said in a statement. “I heard from residents who were terrified at the thought of bullets raining down from helicopters over their beloved island, and others who couldn’t stand the thought of the deer carcasses that would be left in their wake. I am hopeful that the next plan that the conservancy puts forward can earn more widespread support.”
And before you go, some good news
Vanessa Barraza, a young women in Madera County who has gone through years of hardship, including the deportation of her father, has beaten the odds to graduate from community college with three degrees and as student body president, The Fresno Bee reports.
Barraza’s life was turned upside down at 13, when her father, an immigrant, was sent back to his native Mexico. She began struggling with drugs, and three years later became pregnant with her son and dropped out of high school. At 19, she had another child, a daughter who became sick a few months after birth.
Barraza, now 27, eventually finished high school and has graduated this year from Madera Community College with degrees in biological science, social sciences and sociology.
Inspired by the nurse who cared for her young daughter, Barraza hopes to become a registered nurse herself. Her mother wants her to run for mayor of Chowchilla, where she now lives.
“I never saw myself in high school as being anything but a teen parent with no career,” Barraza told the news outlet. “Now, it feels like I’m not just a teen mom.”
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back on Monday. Enjoy your weekend. — Soumya
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.
Halina Bennet and Briana Scalia contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.
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