The controversial shooting and culling of roughly 200 of Catalina Island’s invasive mule deer “is underway,” local officials confirmed to The Times on Wednesday afternoon.
The Catalina Island Conservancy, the private nonprofit land trust tasked with protecting most of Catalina’s 48,000 acres, previously announced the project it deemed “limited deer removal” was scheduled to run from September through October.
Pepe Barton, the conservancy’s director of communications, confirmed that work had begun this week, shortly after legal challenges to stop the culling were shot down.
The conservancy was authorized to start killing deer in early September under a permit issued by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The conservancy announced last year that it would use contracted hunters to shoot the invasive deer as part of an ecosystem restoration plan.
These hunters, a unit of up to a dozen trained professionals employing rifles and bound by state regulations, are expected to kill the island’s non-native mule deer on the ground over four to five years.
About 200 deer are anticipated to be killed from September through October. The culling is part of an opening phase that will test whether any other tools, methods or equipment are needed when crews expand the process next year, Barton told The Times earlier this month.
The history of deer on the island dates back to the 1920s, when they were brought to Catalina for sport hunting, Barton said.
Shortly after their arrival, the deer population exploded to about 2,000.
The deer have wreaked havoc on native species as they eat fire-resilient chaparral and other native plants.
That loss has made way for invasive annual grasses that ignite more easily, increase erosion and leave less water to soak into aquifers, Barton said.
The deer also reduce habitat and food sources for native birds and mammals, such as the endemic Catalina Island fox, Barton said.
A legal challenge to halt the hunting brought in L.A. Superior Court in March by the Safari Club International, the California Rifle & Pistol Assn. and the Coalition to Save Catalina Island Deer, was denied last week.
The contingent challenged the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s decision to exempt the paid-hunter plan from the California Environmental Quality Act.
The plaintiffs alleged the department relied on documentation that “is the product of a biased, closed-off ‘process’ that ignored valid concerns raised by the public.”
A Superior Court judge Sept. 1 tentatively denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, saying there would be no irreparable harm to let the deer eradication plan begin because the process starts with a “pre-removal assessment” while the “actual eradication phase is not set to occur until June 2027.”
But on Thursday, a final ruling denied the request to halt the initial phase of invasive mule deer removal.
L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn long opposed the eradication, ever since a previous plan called for sharpshooters to take aim at the deer from helicopters.
She called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to step in and revoke hunting permits as recently as last month.
“These deer have become beloved to many of the islanders, as well as the thousands of tourists who descend on Catalina Island every year,” she told The Times last month.
As for the deer carcasses, some of the meat will feed endangered California condors, bald eagles and foxes.
Staff writer Lila Seidman contributed to this report.
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