How do they control the boar population now?
Kind of a long story. A few years ago, the Catalina Conservancy, which is in charge of 90% of the island (William Wrigley owned it and established the Conservancy to keep Catalina pristine), hired a man who decided to follow the letter of Wrigley's intent. He said that everything that was non-native had to be done away with. The only exception would be to keep about 50 buffalo because they were a tourist attraction.
He hired an outfit with a helicopter that spent several months shooting every animal on the island because, since it was an island, non of them could be native. So all the goats that kept the foliage from getting out of hand, all the boar, all the foxes, all the deer, were killed.
The result of that was that the town of Avalon was overrun with flesh eating wasps, who multiplied because of all the available meat, then came to the town when there was no more food - they just left the dead bodies to rot.
They had to hire another outfit to come in to take care of the wasps because there were so many people who were going into shock from the bites.
Without the goats, the island flora grew unchecked, both native and non-native plants. Then a stray spark from a chain saw started a fire which consumed a large portion of the island - and come right up to the outskirts of Avalon before it was stopped.
In one of the greatest ironies and examples of Karma, the only home that was destroyed in the fire belonged to the director of the Conservancy who ordered all the animals killed that caused the overgrowth that added fuel to the fire.
The city council meeting that occurred after the fire was put out and where he was basically put on trial came very close to becoming violent. The townsfolk were really pissed and blamed him for the destruction. He was an outsider who destroyed their island. It didn't take much to convince him to leave. |
