We Lost This Round. We Are Appealing.

Friends,

It is with a heavy heart that we must share the news that yesterday, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled against us and dismissed our case without leave to amend.

The court accepted CDFW’s position that our CEQA challenge came one day too late, even though we argued that its defective notices never properly started the clock. It also accepted the use of a Deputy Director to give the required CEQA exemption approval, even though the statute expressly assigns that approval to the Director. The court rejected our other legal challenges to the approval process as well.

We know how painful and frustrating this is for everyone who has spent the past three years fighting to protect Catalina’s deer. We feel it too. 

We believe very strongly that the court got important questions of law wrong.

Ever gracious and displaying its usual sensitivity to the community, the Conservancy is already taking its victory lap, portraying this ruling as validation of its eradication project and the claims it has made about Catalina’s deer. 

It is very important that you understand that this was not a victory on the merits of those claims.

The Conservancy did not prove that Catalina’s deer are responsible for the ecological collapse it alleges. No witnesses testified, no experts were cross-examined, and no court weighed competing scientific evidence. What happened instead is that the court rejected our legal challenges on threshold issues and allowed the project to continue without the full CEQA review that we believe California law requires.

That is precisely why the celebration is so offensive. After three years of earnest objections from tens of thousands of you, from elected officials, community groups, partner organizations, Catalina Island residents and visitors, and others who have demanded real scrutiny, the Conservancy is celebrating the fact that it can move forward without ever having to prove its claims in court or face the scrutiny we have demanded from the beginning.

Just as troubling, the Conservancy has never meaningfully engaged with the fact that these animals matter deeply to thousands of people for legitimate reasons that cannot be reduced to a line item in a "restoration" plan.

Let's be honest. Given the court’s earlier rulings in this case, yesterday’s decision was not entirely unexpected. For some time, we have understood that our real opportunity for independent review of these legal questions might ultimately come in the Court of Appeal.

That time has arrived.

This was not the ruling we wanted, but there is a silver lining. By dismissing our petition without leave to amend, the court has spared us the time and expense it would take to rewrite the petition and return to the same judge in the same trial court. Once judgment is entered, we can take our case directly to the Court of Appeal. 

Now those legal questions go to a court that will review them independently. The Court of Appeal will not simply defer to the trial court’s conclusions; it will decide the legal issues for itself. 

Let's go.

The appellate stage will require resources, and CSCID is a small nonprofit with very limited funds. Our October 22 fundraiser will support the appeal, and the support we receive now will directly affect what we are able to do in the next stage of this fight.

If you have been wondering when your help matters most, it matters now. Please donate if you can, come to our fundraiser, share this update, continue documenting what is happening on Catalina, and keep making your voices heard.

Friends, there is every reason to be angry about yesterday’s ruling. There is no reason to give up. For three long years, this community has refused to look away. We are not about to start now.