Native to the grassy plains of central North America, wild bison today

Native to the grassy plains of central North America, wild bison today find themselves in unusual and diverse places such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island, due to wildlife protection efforts or, as in the latter case, the efforts of past Hollywood producers.

A) Native to the grassy plains of central North America, wild bison today find themselves in unusual and diverse places such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island, due to wildlife protection efforts or, as in the latter case, the efforts of past Hollywood producers.

B) Native to the grassy plains of central North America, the wild bison today finds itself in unusual and diverse places like San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island due to wildlife protection efforts or, as in the latter case, the efforts of past Hollywood producers.

C) The wild bison, native to the grassy plains of central North America, today finds itself in unusual and diverse places like San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island due to wildlife protection efforts or, as in the latter case, the efforts of past Hollywood producers.

D) Wild bison, native tot he grassy plains of central North America, today find themselves in unusual and diverse places such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island due to wildlife protection efforts or, like the latter case, the efforts of past Hollywood producers.

E) Native to the grassy plains of central North America, wild bison today find themselves in unusual and diverse places such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island, due to wildlife protection efforts or, like the latter case, the efforts of past Hollywood producers.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
My annotations are in colored typeface.

• Option A is correct: the introductory phrase native to the grassy plains correctly modifies the noun wild bison.

• Choices B and C can be eliminated because they use like San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island rather than
such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Catalina Island; the phrase gives examples, so the proper idiom is such as.

• Choices D and E incorrectly use like the latter case at the end of the sentence. The sentence is comparing an action to another action
(due to wildlife protection and [due to] the efforts), so the word as should be used.

The correct phrase is as in the latter case, so eliminate D and E

• Answer A is correct.

COMMENTS

The OE is good.

• Using "splits" may be ideal for this question.

Using "splits" is explained by GMATNinja , HERE and by Manhattan Prep HERE.

• Suppose that the entire sentence is too long or complicated to spot the splits.

In that case, stripping the sentence can help a lot.
Eliminate "fluff." You may also want to rename items with variables and bracket the issues in question.

Native to the grassy plains of central North America, wild bison today find themselves in unusual and diverse places such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Park X and Catalina Island Y, due to Ps wildlife protection efforts or, [as in??] the latter case Y, the efforts of Qs past Hollywood producers.

Bison today find themselves in unusual and diverse places such as X and Y, due to P's efforts (with respect to X) or, [as in] Y's case],
due to the efforts of Qs.

When option A seems correct, I have to scan the other answers to see what is at issue (what to put in my brackets with question marks).
I shortened the sentence.
I initially left such as and as in alone, but after scanning the options, I knew which phrases were key.
I went back to the shortened sentence and inserted the square brackets.

With practice, you will condense further, rephrase, and write on the scratch pad a sentence such as
Bison are found now in odd places [such as??] X and Y, due to P's efforts or, [as in the case of] Y, the efforts of Qs.

The sentence intends to convey that wild bison residing in strange places live there because people have made efforts to put the bison there.
The sentence uses two examples to make the point.
Finally, the sentence highlights a rather unusual group, former Hollywood producers, whose efforts relocated the wild bison to Catalina Island.
We would expect "wildlife protection" to be relocating the bison. Hollywood producers? Not so much.

I have included some material on noun-adjective modifiers because
wildlife protection efforts contains two such modifiers.

• This sentence means
Due to wildlife protection efforts, wild bison now live in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
Similarly, due to efforts of former Hollywood producers, wild bison now also live on Catalina Island.

Wildlife protection efforts made it possible for wild bison to live in Golden Gate Park.
Just as in the case of Golden Gate Park in which efforts = action was taken, so too on Catalina Island did efforts = action was taken

• NOUNS as noun modifiers

-- "wildlife protection" is a phrase composed of two nouns that modifies yet another noun.
The two nouns in that phrase are both noun modifiers, discussed here.
. . wildlife . . . .+ . . . . .protection . . . . . .+ efforts
noun-adjective + noun-adjective modifier + modified noun

In English, nouns can function as adjectives: a race car. A sports car.

If I write New York hospital workers, I am talking about workers who are a group of people who work in hospitals that are in New York.

In this case, wildlife protection refers to people who made efforts to protect wildlife (in some kind of organization or ecological initiative.)

It's okay that the second modifier says efforts OF former Hollywood producers.
Not ideal, but okay.
Yes, the phrase could say former Hollywood producers' efforts.
That phrase is clumsy because too many descriptors, including a possessive, precede the noun.
Tracking on "efforts" is easier if the phrasing stands as-is.

What about the other phrase?
The "noun as noun-adjective" modifiers work better than a rearrangement.
This phrase is weird: the efforts of wildlife protection
This one is not very helpful because it doesn't mention protection: the efforts of The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

If we have to choose between correct grammar (AS in) and perfect style, choose grammar.

What do we do with "due to"? Nothing. The phrase is in every option.
Because due to is not a decision point, do not spend more than five seconds on the phrase.

Our resident graphics specialist provides interesting and helpful visual aids.

Both answers are excellent, each in its own way. GKomoku and KanishkM - Kudos to both!