Apparently hunting can be a wildlife management tool everywhere but Catalina
BY JOHN SEGORIA
Special to Western Outdoor News
Regarding the recently approved plan from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that essentially permits the Catalina Island Conservancy to kill off all mule deer living on the island, the claim will be that this was the only viable solution to protect the island from native plant destruction. This makes no sense.
The humans living on the island and vacationing there do way more damage to the habitat and local fauna than the resident mule deer population can manage to do on their own. There are claims that the hunting that was permitted on the island did very little to reduce the mule deer population.
That whole hunting option was not well managed or well utilized. You essentially had to go through a guide service and pay well over $3,000 to access land they had rights for any reasonable chance at taking a deer. Nothing is stopping the Catalina Island Conservancy from opening up more of their property for permitted hunters to gain access without having to go through a service. They could simply just raise the cost of the permit and provide limited transportation options. They would have increased their revenue and had more deer removed each year by hunters who could not legally leave a shot deer behind to rot.
Instead, the Catalina Island Conservancy will spend a significant amount of funding to hire snipers to essentially drive around and shoot whatever deer they can find. They will simply leave most of these deer that are shot to rot in the sun. There are not enough island foxes nor birds of prey to scavenge the hundreds of deer that will be laying dead all over the island at one time. How does this not fly in the face of waste of a game animal? What about the fact that there has to be some level of genetic difference with this isolated group of mule deer from those on the mainland?
What about chronic wasting disease (CWD)? This island’s population of deer is likely the last herd of deer in California that has a reasonable chance of not acquiring CWD. What I find most ironic is the argument that the California mule deer was introduced to Catalina Island and is not native. You know what? The humans living on Catalina Island and visiting it are far less native and ultimately more destructive than the mule deer. There is a place for mule deer on Catalina Island; they just need to be better managed. I expect more from California.
