There will be no bowhunting for deer in Cape Girardeau this fall.Source: Semissurian
The ordinance that would have allowed deer hunting within the city limits is now officially suspended. Keep Cape Safe, a group opposed to urban deer hunting, collected nearly 4,000 signatures on a referendum petition, which was certified Friday by the Cape Girardeau city clerk.
The Cape Girardeau City Council passed the ordinance July 16, which would have allowed bowhunting for deer on tracts of at least three acres during four months in the fall. The council now has 30 days to repeal the ordinance or the issue will be placed before voters in a future election.
Showing posts with label hunting opposition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hunting opposition. Show all posts
Monday, September 10, 2012
MISSOURI NEWS: Referendum on Urban Hunt
Another community is using the petition process to halt urban deer management.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
INDIANA NEWS: Deer Cull, Opposition at Ogden Dunes
There are 55 deer in the one square mile town of Ogden Dunes.
Source: Chicago Tribune
The Town Council has voted 4-1 to seek a deer cull permit after the state Department of Natural Resources rejected steps such as trapping and moving deer and using insecticides to kill ticks on the deer.Not all residents are on board.
Bernadette Slawinski, a 35-year resident and member of the task force, said she spent hours researching alternative methods of controlling both the deer and tick populations and gave her findings to the Town Council.
"I'm not sure they even read the report," Slawinski said.
She said there are simpler things residents can do, such as planting deer-tolerant plants and controlling the mice population, but officials and residents don't seem interested.While Lyme is the main issue, traffic safety is a close second.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Monday, August 13, 2012
MISSOURI NEWS: A Referendum on Whether to Cull
Citizens of Cape Girardeau will get to vote on whether to conduct a municipal deer cull.
Opponents of a Cape Girardeau ordinance that established an urban deer hunting program say they have enough signatures to put the issue to a vote.
The Southeast Missourian reports the organizer of Keep Cape Safe says more than 3,000 petition signatures are on hand and notarized. Only 2,446 signatures are needed to get a referendum on the ballot.
The hunt is scheduled to begin Sept. 15. Supporters say it is needed to cull a deer population that is causing traffic accidents and ruining landscaping inside the city.
Source: Sacramento Bee
Opponents of a Cape Girardeau ordinance that established an urban deer hunting program say they have enough signatures to put the issue to a vote.
The Southeast Missourian reports the organizer of Keep Cape Safe says more than 3,000 petition signatures are on hand and notarized. Only 2,446 signatures are needed to get a referendum on the ballot.
The hunt is scheduled to begin Sept. 15. Supporters say it is needed to cull a deer population that is causing traffic accidents and ruining landscaping inside the city.
Source: Sacramento Bee
Monday, December 28, 2009
PENNSYLVANIA NEWS: Valley Forge NP Hunt Postponed
The National Park Service has called off its plan to deploy silencer-equipped sharpshooters this winter to cull the nearly 1,300 deer overtaking Valley Forge.
With a lawsuit pending and facing the logistics of deploying contract shooters before spring, the government decided to put off a long-planned hunt at Valley Forge National Historical Park until at least next November, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Bernstein told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Where George Washington's tattered troops once scrambled for food and shelter, the exploding white-tailed deer population now enjoys a generous habitat of field and forest. But they eat up so many plants, officials say, they are throwing the park's environmental balance out of whack. They are also blamed for scores of vehicle accidents within the park each year and for wreaking havoc on suburban gardens nearby.
"They cause so much damage to the environment, so many road accidents. And the roadkill — so many deer end up lying on the road. No one wants that, whether you want the deer there or not," said Julia Urwin, 52, of Tredyffrin, who supports the hunt.
After years of heated debate and a congressional mandate to deal with the burgeoning deer colony, the park service decided this fall to cull the herd by 80 percent over four years through nighttime hunts.
Animal-rights activists believe the park should be maintained by natural means, and filed suit to try to block the kill in the 3,500-acre oasis west of Philadelphia.
Others doubt the plan is safe, given that homes, hotels and malls now surround the land where Washington's Continental Army spent the winter of 1777-1778.
"The culling never works ... and I think it teaches our kids the wrong thing," said Priscilla Cohn of Villanova, a retired philosophy professor who runs a small animal-rights foundation. She argues that deer herds invariably bounce back after a hunt, as better-fed survivors produce more offspring and other deer move in to fill the vacuum.
"I'm a believer in science," she said. "Shooting is from the last couple of centuries."
Cohn's foundation has offered about $120,000 for deer contraception and fencing to protect vegetation, but the offer is only good if no deer are slain. Park officials, she said, have ignored her.
The park management plan endorses the use of contraceptives for herd maintenance, but said their effectiveness should be further studied. Meanwhile, they say the deer problem is too severe to wait.
"Our plan is linked strongly to our mission at Valley Forge ... to preserve the historic resources, the natural resources and certainly the landscape," said park Superintendent Michael Caldwell. "It's science-based, it's safe, and there's been an extensive amount of public involvement."
Deer problems plague many parks throughout the East, and similar debates about how to shrink deer herds have played out for years. In the 1990s, Gettysburg National Military Park's deer population was reduced by a hunt from 4,000 to just over 200.
In Valley Forge, the post-hunt target population is 175.
"This park couldn't be better habitat for white-tailed deer. It is the perfect mix of field and forest," said Kristina Heister, the park's natural resource manager. "If you have 1,300 deer on the landscape, I bet it's hard for a squirrel to even find an acorn on the forest floor."
The habitat loss has caused birds, butterflies and other dependent wildlife to disappear, officials say.
The National Park Service cites restoration of that ecological balance as its primary reason for the cull, with a secondary goal of reducing the risk of chronic wasting disease, a mad-cow-like brain disease. The disease has been found in adjacent states, but not in Pennsylvania, and foes of the hunt question whether a smaller herd size reduces risk.
Meanwhile, about 90 deer-vehicle collisions occur each year on the busy state road and several commuter shortcuts that dissect the park, Heister said. No one was seriously hurt last year, she said.
Logistics may be as much at play as the lawsuit in this week's agreement to delay the hunt until next winter.
Park officials had set a Jan. 5 deadline for contractors to bid on the hunting operation, and said they needed about two months after that to initiate it. That left little time for the culling operation during the key winter months.
A lawyer for the groups involved in the suit, Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and Pennsylvania-based Compassion for Animals, Respect for the Environment, said Wednesday they are thrilled by the one-year reprieve.
"The fact that they're not managing the parks in a natural way is really what's driving our concern," said Michael R. Harris, a University of Denver environmental law professor who represents them. "They're supposed to be managed in a wild state."
Harris endorses the use of coyotes — already present in the region — to thin the deer population. If that means suburbanites must learn to live with predators in their midst, so be it, he said.
That approach startles some who use the park's 26 miles of hiking and biking paths, including economist Philip Senechal of Philadelphia.
"I don't like the idea of introducing predators. I think that's risky," Senechal said.
Source: AP
With a lawsuit pending and facing the logistics of deploying contract shooters before spring, the government decided to put off a long-planned hunt at Valley Forge National Historical Park until at least next November, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Bernstein told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Where George Washington's tattered troops once scrambled for food and shelter, the exploding white-tailed deer population now enjoys a generous habitat of field and forest. But they eat up so many plants, officials say, they are throwing the park's environmental balance out of whack. They are also blamed for scores of vehicle accidents within the park each year and for wreaking havoc on suburban gardens nearby.
"They cause so much damage to the environment, so many road accidents. And the roadkill — so many deer end up lying on the road. No one wants that, whether you want the deer there or not," said Julia Urwin, 52, of Tredyffrin, who supports the hunt.
After years of heated debate and a congressional mandate to deal with the burgeoning deer colony, the park service decided this fall to cull the herd by 80 percent over four years through nighttime hunts.
Animal-rights activists believe the park should be maintained by natural means, and filed suit to try to block the kill in the 3,500-acre oasis west of Philadelphia.
Others doubt the plan is safe, given that homes, hotels and malls now surround the land where Washington's Continental Army spent the winter of 1777-1778.
"The culling never works ... and I think it teaches our kids the wrong thing," said Priscilla Cohn of Villanova, a retired philosophy professor who runs a small animal-rights foundation. She argues that deer herds invariably bounce back after a hunt, as better-fed survivors produce more offspring and other deer move in to fill the vacuum.
"I'm a believer in science," she said. "Shooting is from the last couple of centuries."
Cohn's foundation has offered about $120,000 for deer contraception and fencing to protect vegetation, but the offer is only good if no deer are slain. Park officials, she said, have ignored her.
The park management plan endorses the use of contraceptives for herd maintenance, but said their effectiveness should be further studied. Meanwhile, they say the deer problem is too severe to wait.
"Our plan is linked strongly to our mission at Valley Forge ... to preserve the historic resources, the natural resources and certainly the landscape," said park Superintendent Michael Caldwell. "It's science-based, it's safe, and there's been an extensive amount of public involvement."
Deer problems plague many parks throughout the East, and similar debates about how to shrink deer herds have played out for years. In the 1990s, Gettysburg National Military Park's deer population was reduced by a hunt from 4,000 to just over 200.
In Valley Forge, the post-hunt target population is 175.
"This park couldn't be better habitat for white-tailed deer. It is the perfect mix of field and forest," said Kristina Heister, the park's natural resource manager. "If you have 1,300 deer on the landscape, I bet it's hard for a squirrel to even find an acorn on the forest floor."
The habitat loss has caused birds, butterflies and other dependent wildlife to disappear, officials say.
The National Park Service cites restoration of that ecological balance as its primary reason for the cull, with a secondary goal of reducing the risk of chronic wasting disease, a mad-cow-like brain disease. The disease has been found in adjacent states, but not in Pennsylvania, and foes of the hunt question whether a smaller herd size reduces risk.
Meanwhile, about 90 deer-vehicle collisions occur each year on the busy state road and several commuter shortcuts that dissect the park, Heister said. No one was seriously hurt last year, she said.
Logistics may be as much at play as the lawsuit in this week's agreement to delay the hunt until next winter.
Park officials had set a Jan. 5 deadline for contractors to bid on the hunting operation, and said they needed about two months after that to initiate it. That left little time for the culling operation during the key winter months.
A lawyer for the groups involved in the suit, Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and Pennsylvania-based Compassion for Animals, Respect for the Environment, said Wednesday they are thrilled by the one-year reprieve.
"The fact that they're not managing the parks in a natural way is really what's driving our concern," said Michael R. Harris, a University of Denver environmental law professor who represents them. "They're supposed to be managed in a wild state."
Harris endorses the use of coyotes — already present in the region — to thin the deer population. If that means suburbanites must learn to live with predators in their midst, so be it, he said.
That approach startles some who use the park's 26 miles of hiking and biking paths, including economist Philip Senechal of Philadelphia.
"I don't like the idea of introducing predators. I think that's risky," Senechal said.
Source: AP
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
CONNECTICUT NEWS: FoA Protests Town Decision to Hunt Deer
No news on whether Friends of Spirochetes was also involved in organizing the protest.
Protesters lined the Post Road at Sherman Green Wednesday afternoon, demonstrating against a town committee's consideration of allowing hunting on public property to control the local deer population.
"The goal is to enlighten Fairfield residents to what's going on, where it's at and encourage people to start making phone calls and writing letters and let the commission know that we're not going to stand for this," said Nancy Rice, a Friends of
Animals employee who organized the rally.
The group held aloft signs that read: "Stop the War on Wildlife," "Ignoring Facts for the Thrill of the Kill," and "Conservation Commission: Do Not Change Regulations to Allow Killing." The protest didn't go off exactly as planned. One dramatic sign -- a photo of a deer with an arrow through its head -- was kept under wraps because a children's concert was under way on the green.
A hunter can now take down a deer on private property with a bow or a gun, depending on the property's size and how close neighboring homes are.
Conservation Commission member Chester Burley told the Fairfield Citizen last week that if hunting deer on public property is allowed in Fairfield, it would be very controlled and probably wouldn't be allowed more than three times per year.
However, Redding resident Lynn Gorfinkle, who has attended meetings of Fairfield's Deer Management Subcommittee and is a longtime opponent of hunting, said Wednesday that no hunting on public space, no matter how controlled, can be entirely safe.
"It will not work," she said, suggesting that large public lands won't be roped off and many people may miss signs that will posted about the controlled hunts, especially children.
In addition, Gorfinkle said hunters wound or kill 1,000 people in the United States each year.
The Conservation Commission's Deer Management Committee has considered various options to control deer overpopulation, and also has heard suggestions by the public. In addition to hunting, the options include trapping and relocating deer, administering birth control, using repellents and fencing off properties.
Gorfinkle said, "The right way to handle the deer population is to handle the perceived problem that some few individuals claim to have."
For example, deer often get blamed for the spread of Lyme disease, but Gofinkle said a deer is only one of the hosts for the ticks that spread the illness.
"Killing deer will not eliminate Lyme disease," Gorfinkle added.
If people have a problem with deer eating their gardens, Gorfinkle said they should erect a wire fence around their plants and flowers, use repellent sprays or plant things they know the deer won't eat.
Fairfield resident Debbie Lake said she has not seen enough deer to back up the Conservation Commission finding that there are 75 deer per square mile in town, even when she's in the Lake Hills area, where her mother lives.
Hunters looking for deer "are going to wind up killing dogs or kids, or anything," Lake said.
Gorfinkle said she suspects that "this effort on the part of the deer committee was choreographed through their contact with the FCMDMA [Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance] via Milan Bull," a hunter who serves on the Conservation Commission.
A few weeks ago, Rice filed a complaint against the Conservation Commission, claiming that members Bull and Burley violated the town's code of standards and conduct as members of the Deer Management Committee. Rice felt the two members are biased in favor of hunting, as one is a hunter and the other a gardener. The claim was dismissed last week.
In an interview last week, Burley said, "The fact that I'm a gardener and that influences or makes me biased beyond the point of being rational and impartial is as ludicrous an accusation as it is to tell a vegetarian not to shop at Stop & Shop because they sell meat there."
Calls to Bull were not returned.
Gorfinkle, who was born in Fairfield, said past history in various communities and states shows that killing deer increases, rather than decreases, the overall the deer population.
"There's more habitat for the remaining deer," she said. "Their health is amplified.
Their reproductive ability is amplified and instead of maybe having one fawn, a mother will have two or fawns. Hunting spurs the rate of reproduction."
Although the Conservation Commission has been accused of being pro-hunting, it is not following the opinion of the first selectman. Rice said she received a letter from First Selectman Kenneth Flatto stating he opposes the killing of any animals in Fairfield.
"It's good to know he's on our side," Rice said. "I don't know if it will help but it's good to know he's on our side."
Source: Connecticut Post
Protesters lined the Post Road at Sherman Green Wednesday afternoon, demonstrating against a town committee's consideration of allowing hunting on public property to control the local deer population.
"The goal is to enlighten Fairfield residents to what's going on, where it's at and encourage people to start making phone calls and writing letters and let the commission know that we're not going to stand for this," said Nancy Rice, a Friends of
Animals employee who organized the rally.
The group held aloft signs that read: "Stop the War on Wildlife," "Ignoring Facts for the Thrill of the Kill," and "Conservation Commission: Do Not Change Regulations to Allow Killing." The protest didn't go off exactly as planned. One dramatic sign -- a photo of a deer with an arrow through its head -- was kept under wraps because a children's concert was under way on the green.
A hunter can now take down a deer on private property with a bow or a gun, depending on the property's size and how close neighboring homes are.
Conservation Commission member Chester Burley told the Fairfield Citizen last week that if hunting deer on public property is allowed in Fairfield, it would be very controlled and probably wouldn't be allowed more than three times per year.
However, Redding resident Lynn Gorfinkle, who has attended meetings of Fairfield's Deer Management Subcommittee and is a longtime opponent of hunting, said Wednesday that no hunting on public space, no matter how controlled, can be entirely safe.
"It will not work," she said, suggesting that large public lands won't be roped off and many people may miss signs that will posted about the controlled hunts, especially children.
In addition, Gorfinkle said hunters wound or kill 1,000 people in the United States each year.
The Conservation Commission's Deer Management Committee has considered various options to control deer overpopulation, and also has heard suggestions by the public. In addition to hunting, the options include trapping and relocating deer, administering birth control, using repellents and fencing off properties.
Gorfinkle said, "The right way to handle the deer population is to handle the perceived problem that some few individuals claim to have."
For example, deer often get blamed for the spread of Lyme disease, but Gofinkle said a deer is only one of the hosts for the ticks that spread the illness.
"Killing deer will not eliminate Lyme disease," Gorfinkle added.
If people have a problem with deer eating their gardens, Gorfinkle said they should erect a wire fence around their plants and flowers, use repellent sprays or plant things they know the deer won't eat.
Fairfield resident Debbie Lake said she has not seen enough deer to back up the Conservation Commission finding that there are 75 deer per square mile in town, even when she's in the Lake Hills area, where her mother lives.
Hunters looking for deer "are going to wind up killing dogs or kids, or anything," Lake said.
Gorfinkle said she suspects that "this effort on the part of the deer committee was choreographed through their contact with the FCMDMA [Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance] via Milan Bull," a hunter who serves on the Conservation Commission.
A few weeks ago, Rice filed a complaint against the Conservation Commission, claiming that members Bull and Burley violated the town's code of standards and conduct as members of the Deer Management Committee. Rice felt the two members are biased in favor of hunting, as one is a hunter and the other a gardener. The claim was dismissed last week.
In an interview last week, Burley said, "The fact that I'm a gardener and that influences or makes me biased beyond the point of being rational and impartial is as ludicrous an accusation as it is to tell a vegetarian not to shop at Stop & Shop because they sell meat there."
Calls to Bull were not returned.
Gorfinkle, who was born in Fairfield, said past history in various communities and states shows that killing deer increases, rather than decreases, the overall the deer population.
"There's more habitat for the remaining deer," she said. "Their health is amplified.
Their reproductive ability is amplified and instead of maybe having one fawn, a mother will have two or fawns. Hunting spurs the rate of reproduction."
Although the Conservation Commission has been accused of being pro-hunting, it is not following the opinion of the first selectman. Rice said she received a letter from First Selectman Kenneth Flatto stating he opposes the killing of any animals in Fairfield.
"It's good to know he's on our side," Rice said. "I don't know if it will help but it's good to know he's on our side."
Source: Connecticut Post
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
