Deer Cull in New York, East Hampton by Farm Bureau Stopped by Lawsuit

[Beringia]

East Hampton Town and Village Pull Out of Farm Bureau Deer Cull
05 February 2014




By Stephen J. Kotz

The controversial plan to thin the deer herd in East Hampton has been cancelled after officials of both the town and village said a lawsuit filed by opponents of the hunt had made it impractical to move forward — at least this year. East Hampton Village, which had been the most enthusiastic supporter of a plan put forth by the Long Island Farm Bureau to enlist sharpshooters from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to trim the herd, was the first to officially pull the plug.

East Hampton Mayor Rickenbach said the village bailed out after New York State Supreme Court Justice Andrew Tarantino on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order preventing East Hampton Town from proceeding with a culling program. East Hampton Town swiftly followed suit. On Friday afternoon Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilman Fred Overton, the board’s liaison for deer management, issued a statement indicating the town would take a step back from the program as well, citing the ongoing litigation, threats of additional lawsuits, the likelihood that its participation would [font size=4] require the filing of an environmental impact statement, [/font size] and the fact that there had been no interest from private property owners in participating in the program.

On Tuesday, the board rescinded a resolution passed last November that would have allowed the town to sign a contract with the USDA.

http://sagharboronline.com/sagharborexpress/page-1/east-hampton-town-and-village-pull-out-of-farm-bureau-deer-cull-28069



-------------------
Protesters Gather In East Hampton Village To Oppose Deer Culling

Publication: The East Hampton Press
By Shaye Weaver Jan 18, 2014


https://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/East-End/48995/Protesters-Gather-In-East-Hampton-Village-To-Oppose-Deer-Culling



A parade of protesters took to the streets of East Hampton Village on Saturday afternoon to voice their opposition to a deer cull planned by several municipalities, including East Hampton Village, with the help of the Long Island Farm Bureau and U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters. Once they had gathered at Herrick Park, Bill Crain, the president of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, led the group in a series of chants. “You’re standing as protectors of life,” he said. “Hey, hey, ho, ho, these deer killers got to go.”

Ms. Chamberlain announced that animal advocates from LION, the Wildlife Preservation Coalition of Eastern Long Island, and the East Hampton Group for Wildlife have hired an environmental firm from upstate, Young/Sommer LLC, to represent them in a lawsuit against any and all municipalities that sign on to the Farm Bureau’s cull program. She said the advocates are also suing the USDA, which would provide sharpshooters, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, whose approval the culling plan requires.

“The cull is like 16th-century thinking, and this is the 21st century,” Ms. Chamberlain said after the protest, adding that the DEC is discussing a cull of mute swans, too. “These types of wildlife problems are only going to get worse unless we decide to manage our own population and not choose the most primitive form of wildlife management. It is criminally insane to do something like that. We have to rely on scientists, not on psychopaths.



http://www.easthamptongroupforwildlife.org/





-------------------------
Interesting Solution

Buck/Doe Separator
Non-lethal deer population control
Invented by Anthony Marr



http://homosapienssaveyourearth.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-buckdoe-separator-non-lethal-deer.html

[badtoworse]

1. They are destructive (rats with hooves) when they overpopulate an area

Since we don't have wolves, some predation is needed to keep the herd size reasonable. Most people don't like their gardens being ravaged or having a collision with deer on the highway.

[Beringia]

2. Culling

makes the herd rebound stronger, it is a short-term, inhumane solution.

You need contraception or sterilization. Plus they need to do studies on it.

[badtoworse]

4. Any peer reviewed citations? Any proof that sterilization works and is cost effective?

Sorry, but deer are a major pain in the ass where I live and I get really pissed off with animal rights activists.

[joeybee12]

7. Good because I'm pissed off with you...the karma evens out...nt

[JJChambers]

37. Bow hunting

Bow hunting is an excellent sport and should be encouraged in urban areas where deer populations are problematic and rifle hunting isn't practical.

[Beringia]

10. Contraception

by Jay Kirkpatrick, Ph.D., Director, The Science and Conservation Center, Billings, MT

Economic dimensions of deer contraception. The cost of the vaccine is $21/dose (we, by law, must provide it at our cost of production, with no profit), the dart costs about $1.50, and the bulk of the labor to do the darting is where the real cost lies. Costs will vary from site to site, depending on who is doing the work and what they are paid. If you want to pay someone $80,000 a year to dart deer, the cost will be high; if you want to use trained volunteers the cost is less; if you use employees already employed by a park, or agency, or whatever, the cost is somewhere between. I actually can’t say what the costs would be in any given site because of these variables, but I kept the books for the first two years of the Fire Island project and the costs never exceeded $10,000. That included a two or three air fares from Ohio and Montana to New York, and we treated about 150 deer. My math shows that to come out to about $66/deer.


http://www.pzpinfo.org/home.html
-----------------------------

HSUS Fire Island Deer

Fire Island National Seashore was the The HSUS's original deer study site. The primary goals there were to see how effective PZP was in deer and whether or not more than 200 of them could be darted each year. Both were easily accomplished, but more importantly, we found immunocontraceptives alone could be used to stabilize and reduce a deer population over time.

http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/deer/tips/deer-humane-control.html

------------------------------

As far as sterilization, there is program being tested now in Fairfax Virginia

http://fairfaxcity.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/city-council-votes-to-move-forward-with-deer-sterilization-program
Efforts to cull the population by passing an ordinance that would allow limited deer hunting within the city ended in a deadlock this past summer. Since then, the City has been presented with the opportunity to participate in this program and have it funded by a university-based research group that is examining the success rate of using such methods to control growing deer populations in municipalities that choose not to use lethal methods.

The program will be led by Dr. Anthony DeNicola of White Buffalo Inc.

[badtoworse]

15. $66 per deer and 150 were treated? We have thousands in northern NJ

A broadhead costs maybe $30 and can be reused many time. You'll have to do a lot better than that.

How many towns do it as the most cost effective solution?

[Beringia]

20. Are you talking about a rural population?

[badtoworse]

23. I'm talking about northern NJ, it's practically all suburban

[Beringia]

25. So you are a bow-hunter who wants to expand bow-hunting?

Anthony Marr:
The bow-hunters, for example, are relentless in forcing their way into urban and suburban areas where the use of firearms is prohibited. And they do so by hook or by crook, as photographically evidenced in my blog on the case at the Trexler Wildlife Preserve near Allentown, Pennsylvania:

http://homosapienssaveyourearth.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-hunters-government-and-media.html


http://homosapienssaveyourearth.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-buckdoe-separator-non-lethal-deer.html

[badtoworse]

35. Personally, I'm more of a bird hunter and I use a shotgun when I hunt...

...which isn't as often as it used to be. A 30-30 Winchester or a .35 Remington would be my choice for deer in the northeast, but with a range of 2 or 3 miles, such a rifle would not be safe almost anywhere in NJ

[NickB79]

38. A doe-buck seperator? Seriously?

The average rut for North American whitetail deer lasts from 1-3 MONTHS, and usually occurs in Oct-Dec.

So, to be feasible, you need to build who knows how many enclosures, where you keep deer locked up for up to 3 months, where they must be fed, watered and their health monitored to ensure communicable diseases don't spread, at a time when many areas of the country are frequently hit by blizzards and below-freezing weather.

And then you have to expect horned-up bucks to just walk away from enclosures full of fertile females, rather than try to kill themselves trying to squeeze into those enclosures any way they could.

AND, a spike buck (a year-old male with very small horns) could easily get inside. Despite his young age, a spike buck can breed just as well as an old buck if given the chance. Fellows like this would be in heaven:

Yeah, that will work

[Beringia]

41. the rut

The average rut for North American whitetail deer lasts from 1-3 MONTHS, and usually occurs in Oct-Dec.

So, to be feasible, you need to build who knows how many enclosures, where you keep deer locked up for up to 3 months, where they must be fed, watered and their health monitored to ensure communicable diseases don't spread, at a time when many areas of the country are frequently hit by blizzards and below-freezing weather.

(They have feeding stations in some states for elk, such as in Washington, and they are all crowded together. I never hear about disease outbreaks there).


And then you have to expect horned-up bucks to just walk away from enclosures full of fertile females, rather than try to kill themselves trying to squeeze into those enclosures any way they could.
(I am sure there are solutions, if you gave it a try)

AND, a spike buck (a year-old male with very small horns) could easily get inside. Despite his young age, a spike buck can breed just as well as an old buck if given the chance. Fellows like this would be in heaven:

(Whereas female deer can be sexually mature as early as 6 months old, bucks do not become sexually mature until [font size=4] 1.5 years old, [/font size] when they will have a set of antlers about 25% the wide of a 6 year-old's, and given any rutting season, they usually mature towards the end of the rut.)

[NickB79]

32. Fire Island is, well, an island

How exactly would you propose that new, un-darted deer are kept from entering the area as older, darted deer die out and maintaining the population at unacceptably high levels?

The problem with darting is that it costs the community a sizable sum of money from their budgets every year as darting must continue indefinitely, while hunting earns the state money from hunting dues, as well as providing free meat to food shelters that accept it.

[HappyMe]

5. Good grief.

How much does that cost, and who the hell is going to chase the deer around to sterilize them?

[joeybee12]

8. Sarcasm, I hope...

Feeding areas is the easiest.

[HappyMe]

9. No, not sarcasm.

There are always plenty of feeding areas - called people's gardens. Which I suppose the people of East Hampton can afford to replace, and that's good for the landscapers.

Hunting a controlled number and gender of the deer keeps the population under control and can provide meat for food pantries.

[Beringia]

12. For city deer

where has that solution worked? The deer rebound.

[HappyMe]

14. City deer?

I still want to know who's going to pay for this, and how they are to be sterilized?

[Beringia]

18. Pay for what

There is no plan on the table right now. I have been discussing contraception as a solution.

The taxpayers were the ones who were going to be paying for sharpshooters.

[HappyMe]

21. I don't see how contraception will be administered.

Let the tax payers of East Hampton pay for the deer birth control pills. I still think the sharp shooters would be better.

What are the effects of the contraception on other animals or birds?

[Beringia]

24. Porcine Zona Pellucida Vaccine

From Dr. Fitzpatrick:
The PZP vaccine is a protein and ninth grade biology students who are paying attention in class know that proteins can’t pass through the food chain.

http://www.pzpinfo.org/home.html

[HappyMe]

26. It's been quite some time

since I was in 9th grade, so no need for that.

If the people of East Hampton want to pay for it, Planned Parenthood the hell out of them. Just leave our deer up near the Catskills alone.

[Beringia]

27. I was quoting Fitzpatrick, the guy who does the PZP

I don't remember anything from 9th grade myself.

[HappyMe]

29. Ah, okay.

[Jenoch]

30. Contracepton as a solution to an over population of deer is ridiculous.

Deer lack opposable thumbs.

[joeybee12]

6. And you know that they are overpopulating this area?

You are assuming that...apparently others don't agree that they are, hence the envirnmental impact study which the towns haven't done...and they are not rats with hooves...what a motherphucking stupid analogy.

[badtoworse]

11. They are overpopulating where I live and many other suburban areas in the northeast

I have first hand experience with the damage that deer overpopulation causes. Do you? Maybe you're OK with Lyme Disease and having your shrubs and plantings destroyed; I'm not.

Towns don't schedule hunts for the hell of it; they do it because there is a problem.

[Beringia]

17. East Hampton

is asking the city to do studies and get facts. The town was in fact scheduling a hunt for the hell of it, without data to back up the plan. The lawsuit said the town had to provide data.

Also studies have shown there is no correlation between deer population and Lyme disease, it depends on rodents.

----------------------------------------------

http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/East-End/48995/Protesters-Gather-In-East-Hampton-Village-To-Oppose-Deer-Culling

Comment by Highhatsize

The anecdotal report to which you refer involved extirpation, not reduction. Where deer ARE present, an increase or decrease in their numbers does not correlate with an increase or decrease in Lyme Disease. However, such a correlation DOES exist INVERSELY with the population of foxes, strongly suggesting that it is the rodent population rather than the deer population that is responsible for spreading Lyme Disease to people. Studies have found that four small mammals, including the white-footed mouse, account for 90% of infected ticks.

to HamptonsBornandRaised:

“Pennsylvania-based Erie Insurance, which has analyzed deer-vehicle collision data in the state for more than a decade, found that the opening day and opening Saturday of deer hunting season are '[t]wo of the most dangerous days to drive.' According to the Missouri Insurance Information Service, increased deer activity associated with hunting is a 'major factor' in the rise in deer-vehicle collisions in the last three months of the year. With more people (hunters) in the woods, deer are spooked out of wooded areas—often out onto the road.” - PETA

to dnice:

It's a fact. There is simply no correlation. Cf. "Lyme Disease: The Ecology of a Complex System" by Dr. Richard Ostfeld. This study, which synthesizes most of the studies on the topic of the deer population and its relationship to Lyme Disease, found no correlation.

The simple truth is that mistaken “common sense” and the misnomering of the “deer” tick have engendered the widespread erroneous belief that deer are responsible for the Lyme Disease epidemic

[badtoworse]

36. I'll go with these guys. Ostfeld's assertion doesn't pass the smell test.

http://www.deeralliance.com/node/10

Reduce deer populations to about 8 - 10 per square mile. At times, I've seen 8 - 10 walking acoss my street.

[geek tragedy]

3. when the alternative is widescale starvation amongst the population . . .

they could always introduce the wolf and puma back into that area and that would take care of that.

[Beringia]

13. These are city areas

cannot introduce predators.

[geek tragedy]

16. I know. nt

[Beringia]

19. Then what is your statement for

if you are not talking about the East Hampton Deer?

[geek tragedy]

22. to note that the reason for the overpopulation is the removal of predators nt

[Doremus]

28. We better kill them so they don't die

Or, we could stop imposing 'solutions' that suit OUR needs/wants and let nature be, you know, natural?

Far more cities/towns DON'T cull than do.

Where are all these dead deers you speak of?

Funny thing about these culling programs. Taxpayers pay the companies to shoot the deer, but they'd probably do it for free. There's big $$ in deer trophies but most municipalities are either too stupid to negotiate properly or get their palms greased right along with the killers.

The first year of culling in our area, the rare piebald deers that were a popular attraction to our park mysteriously 'disappeared.' My, my, what a coincidence.

[NickB79]

34. "Where are all these dead deers you speak of? "

Mostly being picked up by city workers and disposed of every day after they encounter their most common "natural" predator: the car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer%E2%80%93vehicle_collisions

In 2000, of the 6.1 million lightweight motor vehicle collisions reported in the US, 1 million involved animal-vehicle collisions.[1] Deer–vehicle collisions lead to about 200 human deaths and $1.1 billion in property damage every year.[2]

[Doremus]

39. Sorry, not even close to being the epidemic of starved deer the poster spoke of.

In the meantime, a million collisions? How many of these could have been avoided simply by driving defensively? Many, if not most, imo. Simply being aware that there are likely to be unpredictable creatures in the vicinity would be a great help in preventing needless accidents. Contrary to popular thought, the world and everything in it doesn't exist to serve us.

Now, I'm still waiting for someone to point me to the vast piles of skeletons.

[NickB79]

31. Deer are ravaging Minnesota forests

For example:http://www.mprnews.org/story/2012/04/02/north-shore-deer-population

"A lot of these big pines, they're dying, they're getting blown down, and the cedars too, and we're not really replacing those," White said. "There aren't really trees in the subcanopy that can take their place."

To protect the forest, White recommends planting more white pine and white cedar trees — and reducing the deer density.

In 2006, the state Department of Natural Resources did approve far lower deer population goals for northeastern Minnesota, ones that allow hunters to kill up to five deer, including does and fawns.

And that's WITH a fairly healthy wolf population AND hunters working over the deer every year.

I hope there aren't many nature preserves around East Hampton, because without a way to keep their population in check, deer will breed rapidly and absolutely decimate woodlands.

For an interesting historical read on what happened when all predation was removed from a deer population, the Kaibab Plateau serves as a good example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaibab_Plateau

[Beringia]

40. Deer populations

need to be commensurate with forest size. The solution to keeping down deer populations is to kill does. However hunters rebel and want to kill bucks.

-------------------

Effects of deer on forest

A recent book called “Deer Wars” by Robert Frye, 2006 discussed the problem of hunters interfering with proper deer management, and the adverse effects of too many deer on Pennsylvania forests.

Richard Gerstell, a biologist with the Game Commission in 1938, tried to educate sportsmen about the need to balance deer with their habitat in an article he wrote for the Pennsylvania Game News magazine entitled “Pennsylvania Deer Problem in 1938.” Gerstell warned of the need to balance the deer herd with the forest ecosystem. “Steps must be taken to remedy present conditions or both the deer herd and the deer range will suffer unprecedented and irreparable losses,” he wrote.

What concerned Gerstell was that deer were dying in winter because of malnutrition. Field officers for the Game Commission did a survey from December 16, 1934 to May1, 1935, in which they collected 964 deer that had died from “pathological causes” – that is, something other than old age, gunshot wounds, accidents, or the like. Of those deer, fewer than 1 percent died from poisoning. Fewer than 1 percent died from parasites. Another 7 percent died of unknown causes. The majority – 881 of the deer, more than 91 percent – died from malnutrition.

“The demand for food exceeded the available supply and all suitable and attainable food was consequently devoured without fulfilling the demand. The deer, therefore, consumed various greens, twigs and other materials in an attempt to satisfy their craving for food and in doing so filled their stomachs, but the material contained therein was so low in actual food value that although the stomach was full, the animals perished from lack of nourishment.”

Gerstell concluded that the only real solution was for hunters to shoot more does, thereby decreasing the deer population enough to let the forest repair itself.

The situation persists today, nearly four decades later. The population of Pennsylvania has grown by 3 million people since 1944. The deer herd is also larger, numbering somewhere around 1.5 million animals. (p. 22, Deer Wars)

Deer have drastically changed the makeup of Pennsylvania’s forests. instead of a diverse system – where trees sprout, mature, and produce seedlings that grow to replace them, where the understory is thick and varied, much of Pennsylvania’s forest is made up of hundred-year-old trees reaching toward the sky, lots of ferns blanketing the forest floor, and little in between. (p. 58, Deer Wars)

http://www.angelfire.com/dragon2/leavesandtrees/hunted/myarticles/deerhunting.html

[NickB79]

33. Because clearly, man has never been a natural predator of deer

http://diggingontario.uwo.ca/Archaic.html

[Earth_First]

42. I like how the OP uses imagery of deer in spots 'fawns' to solicit sympathy/outrage...

Very PETA-esque and loses my attention immediately, regardless of the merits within the OP.

Better luck next time.