[3] In the 21st century, the herd has become the subject of an ongoing controversy between a small group of Kodiak ranchers and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge.

In 1799 the Russian-American Company was given a charter by Tsar Paul I to govern the territory of Alaska and manage the exploitation of its resources.

[6] The late Dr. Lydia Black, a leading scholar of the Russian-American period in Alaska, rebutted the legend that there was once a Russian penal colony on Chirikof.

Among those who perpetuated that myth was artist, traveler and writer Henry Wood Elliott, who wrote accurately of the fur trade but fictitiously of much else.

[9] The original venture was the brain-child of an Iowa farm boy with a law degree named Jack McCord.

McCord formed the Chirikof Cattle Company and labored from 1925 to 1950 to build a successful beef industry on the island.

The story is a long saga of shipwrecks, plane crashes, unruly feral cattle, unfulfilled contracts, spoiled meat and good money thrown after bad.

[11] As part of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), certain state lands reverted to federal ownership.

The management plan for the refuge entails restoring the island's native species and requires removal of the cattle, which overgraze the land and damage bird habitat.

However, the most recent attempt in 2003 to remove a small part of the herd - 37 head, by barge - resulted in injuries to the animals that attracted the attention of the Humane Society of the United States.

[12] Additionally, legal issues have delayed plans to remove the herd and restore the island as a bird sanctuary.