ShareThisBy MICHAEL COLLINS
With its sandy white beaches, grass-covered hills and steep sandstone canyons, Santa Rosa Island is a natural wonder, an oasis of tranquility in the Pacific Ocean.
But lately, the 53,000-acre island off the coast of Southern California has been the focus of a severe political storm blowing out of Washington.
The fight involves the island's non-native deer and elk, and whether they should be allowed to remain on the land they have inhabited for nearly a century or whether they should be removed.
The National Park Service, which owns Santa Rosa, and various environmental groups say the animals must go by 2011 under a court settlement reached eight years ago.
But Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is pushing legislation that would allow them to stay.
The debate has brought up other issues, such as whether game hunting should be allowed in a national park, whether the deer and elk are a serious threat to the plant and other animal life on Santa Rosa and what will become of them if they are forced off the island.
"We do not want to see these animals destroyed," said Tim Vail, whose family sold Santa Rosa to the federal government for $30 million in 1986.
The Vails ran a cattle-ranching operation on Santa Rosa for years and transported the Kaibab mule deer and Roosevelt elk there in the 1920s to add species diversity to the island.
The remaining animals are the property of the family's company, Vail & Vickers. After the family sold the land to the government, Vail & Vickers was allowed to continue running a commercial hunting operation on the island. Interested parties pay as much as $17,000 to travel to the island and hunt the animals, which are considered trophy game.
A conservation group sued over the hunts in 1996. Under the court settlement, the deer and elk are to be removed from the island in phases, with the entire herds to be gone by the end of 2011.
The Vails fear they will be forced to kill the animals en mass when it is time to take them off Santa Rosa, which is part of Channel Islands National Park. For now, some 400 deer and 700 elk are still on the island.
Whatever happens to the deer and elk is up to Vail & Vickers, said Yvonne Menard of the National Park Service. But the animals must go, she said, because the settlement agreement dictates so and because of their impact on the island's ecosystem and cultural resources.
Santa Rosa, which sits off the coast of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, is home to a number of rare plants and animals. Eight plant species on the island are endangered or threatened and are protected by federal law.
The deer and elk feed on rare plants or bed down on them, attract predators that devour smaller animals like the island fox and dig into important archaeological sites that are thousands of years old, said Kate Faulkner, chief of natural-resources management for Channel Islands.
"We're not going to see recovery of many of the species as long as we have the deer and elk out there," Faulkner said.
The Vails, however, say their ranching experience has demonstrated that a carefully managed wildlife program could enable the deer and elk to remain without becoming a serious threat to the other plants and animals.
The family dismissed concerns about damage to archaeological sites as "nothing more than self-serving fabrication."
The political fight started last year when Hunter introduced legislation that would allow the animals to stay permanently and the hunts to continue indefinitely.
Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his proposal would protect the deer and elk from chronic wasting disease and other conditions that have afflicted mainland animals.
He also argues that his plan would provide a hunting enclave for military veterans and their guests. But the Paralyzed Veterans of America, one of the groups Hunter says he is trying to help, said recently that Santa Rosa is not a viable location for hunting and recreation.
Others point out that most of the island must be closed for safety reasons during the hunts and that allowing them to continue would in effect make a national park off-limits to the public for months at a time.
The House approved Hunter's plan in May, but the Senate has gone on record in favor of removing the deer and elk by 2011 as scheduled. Unless both chambers agree to let them stay, the animals will have to go.
(E-mail collinsm(at)shns.com.)
remove the non native deer and elk
It is innapropriate for the National Park Service to make 90% of the island, which was purchased with 30 million taxpayer dollars, off limits to the public for almost half the year so that a handful of trophy hunters can go there to kill deer and elk.
It is also innapropriate for the National Park Service to be managing a herd of exotic animals to the detriment of rare and endangered native and endemic plants and animals in order for a commercial hunt to occur on public park lands.
This also sets a dangerous precedent that could spread to other parks.
The deer and elk should be removed from Santa Rosa Island, and public access should be protected.