CHANNEL ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK - Brush-covered and wind-swept, accessible only by boat or plane, Santa Rosa Island seems worlds removed from the crowded Southern California coastline - let alone Washington, D.C.

Yet the 53,000-acre public island 40 miles from Santa Barbara is in the middle of a political tugging match between a powerful House committee chairman, the National Park Service and congressional Democrats.

Under a federal court settlement in place for close to a decade, private deer and elk hunts now staged on the island must end by 2011 and the nonnative game must be removed.

But San Diego-area Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter wants to keep the trophy animals on the island and allow military veterans to hunt them.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for paralyzed veterans and severely disabled veterans to have an opportunity for a high-quality outdoor experience," said Hunter, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.

The plan has drawn vehement protests from the Park Service and Democratic lawmakers, who said hunting blocks public access and interferes with indigenous plants and animals.

"What we need to be focusing on are the purposes for which national parks were set aside, and hunting is not one of those purposes," said Russell Galipeau, superintendent of Channel Islands National Park.

Hunter's plan, which would mandate that the deer and elk stay on the island indefinitely, was approved by the House last month as part of a major defense programs bill. A version of the bill approved by the Senate last week does not contain the provision, and California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer hope they can keep it out of the final bill.

A 30-minute plane ride over the blue-green Pacific from the mainland, Santa Rosa Island is a breathtaking vision of unspoiled sandy beaches and low-lying beach cliffs dotted with cormorants and pelicans. A stand of Torrey Pines - one of only two locations for the trees in the world - hug a hillside, and endangered manzanita plants cover patches of ground.

On one side of the island - the second-largest of five in the Channel Islands park - an archaeology professor is studying well-preserved island cliff formations. Elsewhere, large cages hold endangered island foxes the Park Service is trying to breed to increase their numbers.

Even Park Service officials who want the deer and elk removed said the animals can make a stunning sight for hikers and campers in this wild environment.

But the agency said the deer and elk trample native vegetation, and fawns and carrion left behind after the hunts attract golden eagles that prey on the island foxes.

During the August-December hunting season, more than three-quarters of the island is off-limits to the public for safety reasons.

Hunter has never been to the island and said that to avoid conflict-of-interest accusations he'll never go. He argued that hunting isn't much of a nuisance because the island has so few visitors - about 5,000 a year.

Compared to the herds of cattle that once occupied the island, the deer and elk are hardly invasive, he added. "This isn't like importing a giraffe," Hunter said.

Hunter's legislation doesn't say how the herds would be managed after the 2011 deadline, or how the hunts - which now cost from $1,800 to $17,000 - would be made affordable for veterans. Hunter said it would not be difficult to run free hunts at no cost to taxpayers, which his opponents dispute.

Doug Warren, an official with Paralyzed Veterans of America, said Santa Rosa would provide a uniquely contained environment for disabled vets, and questioned the need to remove the animals.

"It adds so much to have them here," Warren said. "Otherwise what are you going to look at?"

On the Net:

Channel Islands National Park: http://www.nps.gov/chis