In the 80s and early 90s, Catalina Island (an island about 18 miles off the southern california coast) had 4 bowhunting camps on it that ran pretty much year around. Every weekend 40-80 bowhunter were spread amongst the camps. The cost was ~$200 in the mid to late eighties for the weekend.

Spanish goats and pigs were all over the island, left on the island during the spanish exploration for California, and were great quarry for bowhunters. There were no bag limits and, in fact, the operators urged you to kill as many goats and pigs as possible.

It was not unusual to goto the island with 10 dozen of the cheapest arrows and broadheads that you could find because you would go through a ton of arrows in the rough and rocky terrain. I shot 500 "mt. goats" on Catalina Island before I ever shot my first real Mt. Goat in Alaska. The terrain in Alaska, while much more remote, was actually quite a bit less rough than lets say the China Wall on Catalina.

While most people that are familiar with Catalina know that it was once owned by the Wrigley family, I guess all that gum adds up, they eventually donated the island to the Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservacy was the group that was running all the hunts to protect the native plants and flowers.

Eventually, they stopped the bowhunting on Catalina and started slaughtering the goats w/ machine guns from helicopters.

It was an end of an era. Don't believe that they support hunting, they just will use any means necessary to preserve the flora.

SA