Some Town & Country residents oppose a draft deer management plan that calls for sharpshooting alone to be used to kill up to 350 deer over the next two years.
The action would curb the animals' population in the city and reduce car-deer collisions and other problems, city officials have said. However, residents who oppose it point to a 2008 survey in which 67 percent of residents responding didn't want lethal methods to be the only ones used.
Alderman Al Gerber said he will propose a combination of sharpshooting and sterilization of does when the plan comes up for a first reading on Sept. 26.
A final vote is set for as early as Oct. 10. Whatever plan is put in place, its first year could begin as early as late December and run through early February 2012.
Police Capt. Gary Hoelzer told the board Monday (Sept. 12) that the draft plan would authorize a wildlife management service agreement between the city and White Buffalo Inc. for sharpshooting services. Hoelzer had recommended using only professional sharpshooting in his report, calling it the quickest and most effective means for bringing down the number of deer in the city.
The current deer population is about 660, or 66 per square mile.
The short-term goal is to reduce that number to about 300, or 30 per square mile.
After two years, the city could analyze the number of deer remaining based on the deer-car collision rate and determine if further population control is needed, Hoelzer said.
The draft plan proposes paying White Buffalo Inc. as much as $100,000 between December and February 2012, with a goal of killing as many as 300 deer from tree stands. From December 2012 to February 2013, as many as 50 more deer would be shot, at an extra cost of $30,000, for a total $130,000 for the two-year period. Another $31,500 would be budgeted over the two years to pay for processing deer for the Share the Harvest program that provides meat to the needy.
The city included no money for deer management in its previous budget year. However, sharpshooters and sterilization were used in the two years prior.
Gerber insisted doe sterilization can be cost effective.
He recommended the city's goal be to reduce the population of deer to 40 per square mile over the two-year period. The city could then decide if a smaller population is advisable.
"Thirty (per square mile) is overkill," Gerber said. "If you sterilize a doe early in her first year, you spend $1,100 per deer and then no money after that. Over a long period, sterilization costs less, because no more fawns are produced that then have to be killed."
Gerber proposes sterilizing 50 deer first and then sharpshooting 100 more between December and February 2012.
"The next year (December through February 2013), 15 more would be sterilized and then 100 more shot," Gerber said. "After that, only 15 would have to be sterilized each year. After only two years, Town & Country would be completely out of the killing business."
Barbara Hughes, of Hawthorne Estates Drive, said the board should "remember what residents want and don't consider a plan without non-lethal methods of management."
"People want to see the deer and, if a considerable number are killed, we won't anymore," said Traci Cardenos, a resident who lives on Willowbend Drive.
