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A Multipronged Tussle Over the Fate of Herds Living in an Island Park
By FELICITY BARRINGER Published: October 9, 2006 SANTA ROSA ISLAND, Calif., Oct. 3 .........
Close a public park to make way for a private hunt? That is not the Park Service’s preference. When it acquired Santa Rosa Island at the time the Channel Islands National Park was formed in 1986, it accepted a 25-year transition period during which the hunting would continue. It wants the animals off the island. The 1,150 deer and elk, park officials say, compromise the native ecosystem — by munching on seedlings of the rare island oaks, for instance. ......
First, Mr. Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, suggested that military personnel and their guests should enjoy the hunt. Then he said it should continue for disabled veterans.
Neither of these proposals went over. But last week the huge military authorization bill emerged from a House-Senate conference committee with a vestige of the chairman’s original proposal, as inscrutable as the Cheshire cat’s smile. No disabled veterans were mentioned. Not even the word “hunt.”
But by forbidding the park service to “exterminate or nearly exterminate” the animals, Mr. Hunter ensured that, unless someone shipped them out, the deer and elk would remain.........
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