At Maysville High School in Maysville, Missouri, population 1,100, classes can be a bit tough for the squeamish. Coursework may involve assigned reading and algebra, but also a fair amount of blood and guts.

In 2022, the high school, an hour’s drive north of Kansas City, added a farm-to-table elective taught by a family and consumer sciences teacher, Amy Kanak, who works with an agriculture teacher, Brandi Ellis. Students have already learned to harvest and process livestock and game in their agriculture classes, and to dissect the organs in their science classes. The new course gives them the opportunity to prepare meals with the harvested meat, a logical conclusion to the hard work of students in other classes. Ms. Kanak provides instructions on the tail end of the nose-to-tail process, on meal prep, returns, budgeting and bulk cooking.

But it all starts with the hardest and messiest part: culling animals and breaking them down. For many students, it is the first time they have held a knife and slaughtered. Ms Kanak hopes students will complete her course with an understanding of where their food comes from.

Ms Ellis, who believes the lessons are crucial at a time when grocery bills are rising, said: “It forces them out of their comfort zone a bit.”

Garrett Bray, then a senior at Maysville High School, pulled a freshly shot doe from the woods on his family’s property in 2022. Garrett learned to hunt from his father and has been hunting from a young age.

Max DeShon, right, helps drag two young animals out of Garrett’s pickup. Normally, Garrett would have field-dressed the deer himself, but he delivered them so students could learn processing and butchering.

Sophia Redman, a 2022 freshman, makes a first cut on a doe during an agriculture class.

Kaleb Jestes, left, processes venison and sorts it into different cuts during a farm-to-table food course. A single deer weighs an average of 60 to 70 pounds of processed meat, making it an affordable option if you know how to hunt and process the animal yourself. Deer permits in Missouri starting in 2024 will start at $7.50 for antlerless deer, or $18 for each deer. Youth tags cost even less.

Cindy Eggleston, an eighth-grade science teacher, shows her students, from right, Keely Hardin, Makenzie Mason and Kella Morris, freshly harvested deer organs that will be part of an anatomy lesson on the heart and lungs.

Max Heintz retrieves a rooster from a shed outside the agricultural building at the start of the school day in December 2023. ​​A local resident called Mrs. Ellis and asked to donate seven overly aggressive roosters to the program. Mrs. Ellis teaches students how to cull and process chickens every year, often after raising them at school.

Culled roosters bleed into garbage bins in the agricultural building.

Makenzie set out in 2023 and took the temperature of the water while her classmates Nathan Schnitzer, center, and Bo May held their culled chickens during an agriculture lesson. Various classes take part in the entire process throughout the day: culling, gutting the carcasses by first dipping them in boiling hot water, and preparing the birds for cooking and eating by removing organs and legs.

Keagan Reeder, left, and Cooper Ray, center wearing hats, stand by as Colton LeMunyon, in Buffalo Bills hoodie, grills chicken the students have marinated.

Colton dug into a fried drumstick from a rooster that had been culled by a class that morning. Students noted how tough the meat was, likely due to the age of the roosters.

From right we see Kameron Keesaman, Robert Stinley Jr. and Bo Zeikle put on their aprons at the start of a cooking class.

Frying chicken livers from the roosters that the agricultural classes had cleared and processed the week before.

Charlee Kimbrell, left, Robert Boucher, center, and teacher Amy Kanak “cheer” their fried chicken livers before tasting.

Fried venison steak with chicken, topped with gravy and fried potatoes and green beans, prepared and served in Ms. Kanak’s classroom, the end of a process that started in the back of a pickup truck.

Katie Currid contributed reporting.

Santa Catalina Island is one of the most remote stretches of Los Angeles County, part of a 20-million-year-old archipelago in the Pacific Ocean known as the Channel Islands.

The eight islands have long been populated by humans; the Chumash believe their ancestors came from there. The islands are so biologically diverse: there was once a unique species pygmy mammoths who wander through their hills – that they are often called the Galápagos of North America. Five of the islands now form one of the least visited national parks in the country.

I recently wrote about a proposal that created a storm on Catalina, the island closest to Los Angeles. In an effort they say is necessary to save the island’s native plants, conservationists are proposing to kill all deer on Catalina by shooting them from helicopters.

You can read my full article about the plan here.

The project reflects Catalina’s role as LA’s playground over the past century. The island, which is not part of the national park, was made famous by Golden Age Hollywood stars who partied in the island’s only town, Avalon. A number of songs have been written about the so-called Island of Romance, including the catchy “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” by the Four Preps and “Avalon” by Al Jolson.

Nearly a century ago, 18 deer were brought to the island for sport hunting. Because they have no natural enemies, their numbers have grown to 2,000. Scientists say the deer must go because they devour drought- and fire-resistant plants that native species depend on.

But the deer have been on Catalina longer than anyone else on the island, and in the eyes of many local people, they feel like an essential part of life. Bre Bussard, who lives on the island and runs a charter boat company, told me her young children believed the docile creatures were Santa’s reindeer.

“Every time we see deer running through town, I tell my kids, ‘Tell Santa’s reindeer what you want for Christmas,’” said Bussard, 30. “It’s just been a wonderful part of their childhood. I feel like if we were to eliminate the deer, it would in a way eliminate some of their youth.

Other Catalina residents oppose the slaughter of all deer for various reasons. Hunting is a favorite pastime on the island and hunters kill 200 deer every year. Johnny Machado, a Catalina native who learned to hunt deer for meat as a child, said he would like to reduce deer numbers the way he knows how.

“I can easily shoot 10 deer, and I can go to town and give that meat away to family and friends,” Machado, 61, said. “The old-timers who don’t go hunting anymore, they would love that.”

If you read one story, let it be this one

Sikh Americans, who are concentrated in California, are on edge.

Where we travel to

Today’s tip comes from Diana Bristol, who lives in Sherman, Conn. lives:

“I’ve been visiting my daughter in LA since she went to USC in ’94. What I like is visiting the Gambling house and bookstore in Pasadena, take a tour and then walk around the block and see all the other Greene and Greene houses. My daughter scattered some of her father’s ashes in the front yard. He studied architecture at USC and I think it’s great that USC purchased the Gamble House and has two architecture students live there.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We will share more in future editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

How do you celebrate the holidays in California? With a refreshing walk on the beach, a batch of tamales or stargazing in the desert?

Email me at CAtoday@nytimes.com with your Golden State holiday traditions. Please include your name and the city in which you live.

And before you go: good news

The giant old-growth redwoods at Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains are miraculously recovering three years after the CZU Lightning Complex fire decimated the park in Northern California.

Scientists and researchers said last month at a symposium dedicated to the park’s restoration that the ancient colossal trees, some of which are more than 80 meters tall and 1,500 years old, have regrowd at impressive speed since the 2020 fire. Trees that were recently brown or poorly scorched now display lush canopies, and according to one biologist, about 90 percent of the forest’s redwoods are now sprouting.

The revived forest is visible in photos taken daily by Northern Arizona University scientists since the April fire. The photos, shared with the public at the recent symposium, are an uplifting reminder of nature’s ability to regenerate after traumatic events. They are also an encouraging sign for state park officials, who want to continue reopening the park and rebuilding visitor facilities and campgrounds.

“Ecologically, the park is doing great,” said Jon Keeley, a professor of biology at UCLA who has studied the forest. Bay Area News Group in an interview. “The forest will come back as it was adapted.”

For decades, alien animals have plagued the rare habitat on Catalina. The proposed solution has angered local residents and animal lovers.

WHY WE ARE HERE

We explore how America defines itself one place at a time. On a California island, residents and conservationists are arguing over how to protect the habitat for future generations.

December 2, 2023

Santa Catalina Island is the crown jewel of the Channel Islands, an archipelago off the coast of Southern California that is so biodiverse it is often called “North America’s Galápagos.”

Catalina, as it is commonly known, is a rugged mountain jutting out of the sea and is home to more than 60 plants and creatures not found anywhere else on earth. Plump quails and miniature foxes unique to the island, rush along the dirt roads that wind through scrub-covered hills. Thick cushions of mist roll ashore, covering the leaves of rare plants with dew. Bald eagles swoop far above the glittering Pacific Ocean.

But the habitat suffers as much of the native flora has been destroyed by animals shipped here over the past century for ranching, hunting and movie filming.

For Lauren Dennhardt, the island’s top conservationist, there is only one way to save Catalina for future generations: kill all the deer.

Five of the eight Channel Islands include an outlying island National Park, but Catalina, the closest to Los Angeles, has had a very different existence. For more than 100 years, the island has been a tourist destination, made famous by John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and legions of other Golden Age Hollywood stars who boarded steamships to Catalina – $2.25 roundtrip – to dancesunbathe and enjoy glass bottom boat rides.

The contours of the island were also seen as prime hunting grounds, and eighteen mule deer were introduced from California’s forests nearly a century ago. Now 2,000 deer mow through the native plants here.

That has eroded soils, depleted the food supply for other animals and, most alarmingly, allowed flammable shrubs and grasses to proliferate, said Dr. Dennhardt, rolling down her window as she drove to catch a handful of tumbleweeds. picking up some brush growing on a Catalina hill. These non-native plants, she said, could create conditions similar to those that fueled the recent catastrophic fire in Maui.

The Catalina Island Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that owns 88 percent of the 75-square-mile island, has concluded that the only way to save native plants and restore the island is to get rid of the deer .

The non-profit organization, for which Dr. Dennhardt, senior director of conservation, first considered relocating. But it would be nearly impossible to reach deer hiding in ravines, and the animals often die from stress when captured. There would be similar challenges with sterilization, and yet it would take 15 years to eliminate the deer, she said.

Enter the snipers. The Conservancy ultimately decided that slaughtering the deer with rifles from helicopters for seven weeks next summer was their best hope. Although the approach sounds extreme, such projects are quite common in the field of conservation and have already been implemented on all other Channel Islands. More than worldwide 1,200 exterminations of invasive horses, cats, moose and other mammals have emerged on islands to strengthen fragile ecosystems.

“You don’t do these projects lightly,” said Dr. Denhardt. “This is a last resort.”

The sanctuary still needs approval from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is reviewing the plan. A spokeswoman, Jordan Traverso, said it was premature to comment on the sniper approach, although the department was “generally supportive of the broader habitat restoration project.”

But outrage has arisen at the prospect of shooting deer from the air. Many of the 3,000 residents of Avalon, a resort community on the edge of the nature reserve, have organized protests and signed petitions. Animal lovers and deer hunters alike have joined the choir.

Tourists streaming from cruise ships onto Avalon’s palm-tree-lined boulevard are now greeted with “Stop the Slaughter” posters adorning the windows of stores selling Hawaiian shirts and sand dollar Christmas ornaments.

Avalon residents, who have long called themselves “islanders,” said they felt deeply connected to the land and their way of life, informed by childhoods spent spearfishing in sparkling blue waters, camping on sandy beaches or admiring deer bouncing around their schoolyard. One resident said her young children believe the docile animals are Santa’s reindeer.

While maneuvering his green pickup atop a ridge on a recent morning, Pastor Lopez, 74, hit the brakes as a deer sprinted across the road before disappearing into a canyon covered in dry chaparral. Mr. Lopez, who was born on the island, recalled his family nicknamed his older sister the “Wandering Deer” because of how often she walked through the island’s interior.

“To me, the deer, rattlesnakes and all living things here are just like me. I feel like we are connected. All the animals, we all spend time here,” Mr. Lopez, who retired as head of Avalon’s public works department, said in a gravelly voice. “No one should have the right to slaughter the deer, to make that decision.”

He said the conservation group should do a better job of pruning the flammable plants instead of blaming deer for their spread. The Conservancy said this approach is not sustainable in the long term.

Some Americans may still associate Catalina with William Wrigley Jr., the long-ago chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs. In 1919, Mr. Wrigley purchased Catalina and built the attractions that initially drew people here, including a baseball field, where his team spring training over a period of 30 years.

The island was also enough to attract young Ronald Reagan as a radio announcer for the Cubs. While in California, he took a screen test that ultimately landed him his first film role in the state where he would become governor and later be sent to the White House.

In 1972, Mr. Wrigley’s heirs founded the nonprofit Catalina Island Conservancy, to which they donated most of the land for preservation.

In a shallow valley surrounded by brown hills, Dr. Dennhardt opens a gate to enter a lush garden, a stark contrast to the parched landscape just beyond the fence. The fence is a conservation project to illustrate what Catalina might look like without deer, said Dr. Denhardt.

Visibly excited, she pinched a silver leaf from a small bush. “That’s a very rare plant,” as she held it to her nose to get a whiff of sage scent, “but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Previously, the conservancy killed some 8,000 goats (originally brought by Spanish missionaries in the 1820s) and 12,000 pigs (brought for sport hunting a century later). These animals also devoured valuable plants and caused erosion. There are still about 90 non-native bison on the island (taken for a film in 1924) who practice birth control.

The conservation group says it has tried to manage the deer through a hunting program that has killed about 200 deer each year, but that has proven insufficient. The deer have no natural enemies on the island, allowing their population to grow uncontrollably.

While the islanders are fine with the locals hunting deer, many feel the slaughter of them all is out of step with the peaceful Catalina. Avalon is quaint by definition, just a square mile stretching along a bay where boats float, run by locals who grew up together. It is served by one supermarket and is full of golf carts due to a strict restriction on new cars.

While many residents have protested civilly, some of the opposition has turned ugly. Dr. Dennhardt, who lives on the island with her family, said she has received disturbing threats on social media and briefly left the island in October for her safety. A suspicious package sent to the wildlife agency was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

An anonymous “Jane Doe” sent a message to Dr. Dennhardt in an advertisement in the Catalina Islander newspaper: “Your pleasant demeanor is deceptive and a most cunning way to hide your black heart.”

Capt. Matthew King of the Sheriff’s Department said law enforcement officials have been monitoring the protests and reports but have not deemed it necessary to take action so far. Captain King, who is stationed in Avalon at the department’s smallest station, said the deer controversy has captured the community’s attention in a way that would be unlikely on the mainland.

“There’s not much to do here, so the truth is every little thing is a big deal on this island,” he said. “This is part of LA County, but it is the Mayberry of LA County.”

Within the protected enclosure marched Dr. Dennhardt to the Catalina ironwood, a tree that only grows on the island. This type of tree became extinct in the rest of North America about 12,000 years ago.

“What a gift to be able to see and touch something you can’t do on land,” she said, tilting her head up to listen to the birds chirping in the leaves. “What we have about Catalina is this stamp from old California that can easily be brought back.”

For decades, alien animals have plagued the rare habitat on Catalina. The proposed solution has angered local residents and animal lovers.

WHY WE ARE HERE

We explore how America defines itself one place at a time. On a California island, residents and conservationists are arguing over how to protect the habitat for future generations.

December 2, 2023

Santa Catalina Island is the crown jewel of the Channel Islands, an archipelago off the coast of Southern California that is so biodiverse it is often called “North America’s Galápagos.”

Catalina, as it is commonly known, is a rugged mountain jutting out of the sea and is home to more than 60 plants and creatures not found anywhere else on earth. Plump quails and miniature foxes unique to the island, rush along the dirt roads that wind through scrub-covered hills. Thick cushions of mist roll ashore, covering the leaves of rare plants with dew. Bald eagles swoop far above the glittering Pacific Ocean.

But the habitat suffers as much of the native flora has been destroyed by animals shipped here over the past century for ranching, hunting and movie filming.

For Lauren Dennhardt, the island’s top conservationist, there is only one way to save Catalina for future generations: kill all the deer.

Five of the eight Channel Islands include an outlying island National Park, but Catalina, the closest to Los Angeles, has had a very different existence. For more than 100 years, the island has been a tourist destination, made famous by John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and legions of other Golden Age Hollywood stars who boarded steamships to Catalina – $2.25 roundtrip – to dancesunbathe and enjoy glass bottom boat rides.

The contours of the island were also seen as prime hunting grounds, and eighteen mule deer were introduced from California’s forests nearly a century ago. Now 2,000 deer mow through the native plants here.

That has eroded soils, depleted the food supply for other animals and, most alarmingly, allowed flammable shrubs and grasses to proliferate, said Dr. Dennhardt, rolling down her window as she drove to catch a handful of tumbleweeds. picking up some brush growing on a Catalina hill. These non-native plants, she said, could create conditions similar to those that fueled the recent catastrophic fire in Maui.

The Catalina Island Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that owns 88 percent of the 75-square-mile island, has concluded that the only way to save native plants and restore the island is to get rid of the deer .

The non-profit organization, for which Dr. Dennhardt, senior director of conservation, first considered relocating. But it would be nearly impossible to reach deer hiding in ravines, and the animals often die from stress when captured. There would be similar challenges with sterilization, and yet it would take 15 years to eliminate the deer, she said.

Enter the snipers. The Conservancy ultimately decided that slaughtering the deer with rifles from helicopters for seven weeks next summer was their best hope. Although the approach sounds extreme, such projects are quite common in the field of conservation and have already been implemented on all other Channel Islands. More than worldwide 1,200 exterminations of invasive horses, cats, moose and other mammals have emerged on islands to strengthen fragile ecosystems.

“You don’t do these projects lightly,” said Dr. Denhardt. “This is a last resort.”

The sanctuary still needs approval from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is reviewing the plan. A spokeswoman, Jordan Traverso, said it was premature to comment on the sniper approach, although the department was “generally supportive of the broader habitat restoration project.”

But outrage has arisen at the prospect of shooting deer from the air. Many of the 3,000 residents of Avalon, a resort community on the edge of the nature reserve, have organized protests and signed petitions. Animal lovers and deer hunters alike have joined the choir.

Tourists streaming from cruise ships onto Avalon’s palm-tree-lined boulevard are now greeted with “Stop the Slaughter” posters adorning the windows of stores selling Hawaiian shirts and sand dollar Christmas ornaments.

Avalon residents, who have long called themselves “islanders,” said they felt deeply connected to the land and their way of life, informed by childhoods spent spearfishing in sparkling blue waters, camping on sandy beaches or admiring deer bouncing around their schoolyard. One resident said her young children believe the docile animals are Santa’s reindeer.

While maneuvering his green pickup atop a ridge on a recent morning, Pastor Lopez, 74, hit the brakes as a deer sprinted across the road before disappearing into a canyon covered in dry chaparral. Mr. Lopez, who was born on the island, recalled his family nicknamed his older sister the “Wandering Deer” because of how often she walked through the island’s interior.

“To me, the deer, rattlesnakes and all living things here are just like me. I feel like we are connected. All the animals, we all spend time here,” Mr. Lopez, retired head of Avalon’s public works department, said in a gravelly voice. “No one should have the right to slaughter the deer, to make that decision.”

He said the conservation group should do a better job of pruning the flammable plants instead of blaming deer for their spread. The Conservancy said this approach is not sustainable in the long term.

Some Americans may still associate Catalina with William Wrigley Jr., the long-ago chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs. In 1919, Mr. Wrigley purchased Catalina and built the attractions that initially drew people here, including a baseball field, where his team spring training in 30 years.

The island was also enough to attract young Ronald Reagan as a radio announcer for the Cubs. While in California, he took a screen test that ultimately landed him his first film role in the state where he would become governor and later be sent to the White House.

In 1972, Mr. Wrigley’s heirs founded the nonprofit Catalina Island Conservancy, to which they donated most of the land for preservation.

In a shallow valley surrounded by brown hills, Dr. Dennhardt opens a gate to enter a lush garden, a stark contrast to the parched landscape just beyond the fence. The fence is a conservation project to illustrate what Catalina might look like without deer, said Dr. Denhardt.

Visibly excited, she pinched a silver leaf from a small bush. “That’s a very rare plant,” as she held it to her nose to get a whiff of sage scent, “but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Previously, the conservancy killed some 8,000 goats (originally brought by Spanish missionaries in the 1820s) and 12,000 pigs (brought for sport hunting a century later). These animals also devoured valuable plants and caused erosion. There are still about 90 non-native bison on the island (taken for a film in 1924) who practice birth control.

The conservation group says it has tried to manage the deer through a hunting program that has killed about 200 deer each year, but that has proven insufficient. The deer have no natural enemies on the island, allowing their population to grow uncontrollably.

While the islanders are fine with the locals hunting deer, many feel the slaughter of them all is out of step with the peaceful Catalina. Avalon is quaint by definition, just a square mile stretching along a bay where boats float, run by locals who grew up together. It is served by one supermarket and is full of golf carts due to a strict restriction on new cars.

While many residents have protested civilly, some of the opposition has turned ugly. Dr. Dennhardt, who lives on the island with her family, said she has received disturbing threats on social media and briefly left the island in October for her safety. A suspicious package sent to the wildlife agency was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

An anonymous “Jane Doe” sent a message to Dr. Dennhardt in an advertisement in the Catalina Islander newspaper: “Your pleasant demeanor is deceptive and a most cunning way to hide your black heart.”

Capt. Matthew King of the Sheriff’s Department said law enforcement officials have been monitoring the protests and reports but have not deemed it necessary to take action so far. Captain King, who is stationed in Avalon at the department’s smallest station, said the deer controversy has captured the community’s attention in a way that would be unlikely on the mainland.

“There’s not much to do here, so the truth is every little thing is a big deal on this island,” he said. “This is part of LA County, but it is the Mayberry of LA County.”

Within the protected enclosure marched Dr. Dennhardt to the Catalina ironwood, a tree that only grows on the island. This type of tree became extinct in the rest of North America about 12,000 years ago.

“What a gift to be able to see and touch something you can’t do on land,” she said, tilting her head up to listen to the birds chirping in the leaves. “What we have about Catalina is this stamp from old California that can easily be brought back.”