Judge rules 2,000 Catalina Island deer can be killed to save native plant species

A mule deer doe walks through a hillside behind the Descanso Beach Club in Avalon on Catalina Island. Photograph: Allen J Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Locals and tourists have long fawned over Catalina Island’s mule deer population. For nearly a century, the ungulates have roamed the land’s waterfronts and woodlands, so comfortable around humans that it is not uncommon to spot deer roaming downtown Avalon.

But that sight will soon disappear, after a judge this week paved the way for the island’s conservancy to kill nearly all the island’s 2,000 deer.