Forget deer birth control, State opens special hunting season in Ithaca area
Cayuga Heights remains a sanctuary city for deer, for now.
On Monday I wrote how the Village of Cayuga Heights, bordering the Cornell University campus and the City of Ithaca, has spent $2,984 per deer in a sterilization program which had no hope of reducing the deer population to an environmentally safe level.
A reader just emailed me with a press release issued this morning by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation declaring war on deer in the central Tompkins County area in and around Ithaca:
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation sent this bulletin on 01/15/2014 12:59 PM EST
Hello,
The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has issued the following press release:
Special Deer Hunting Season in Central Tompkins County to Help Control Local Deer Population
Deer Management Focus Area Open Until January 31, 2014
A special deer hunting season to help control the deer population in and around the city of Ithaca, Tompkins County, will be open until January 31, 2014, State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Regional Director Ken Lynch announced today.
The Deer Management Focus Area (DMFA) program was initiated in 2012 in the Ithaca area to expand the use of hunting to assist local communities burdened with overabundant deer populations. The DMFA encompasses 60,000 acres of land in and around the city of Ithaca, including the city and town of Ithaca, the villages of Cayuga Heights and Lansing, and parts of the towns of Danby, Caroline, Dryden, Lansing, Enfield, Newfield and Ulysses.
During the special January season in the DMFA, registered hunters are authorized to shoot two antlerless deer per day using a shotgun, muzzleloader, handgun, or bow (if they have bowhunting eligibility). Hunters must still comply with all state trespassing laws, as well as all applicable local ordinances governing the discharge of firearms.
To participate, hunters must register with the DMFA program and download a permit, carcass tags and a hunting activity log. Both the DMFA permit and carcass tags must be carried while hunting in the DMFA and are valid only within the DMFA. All DMFA hunters must record their deer hunting activity and harvests on the hunting activity log regardless of their success or hunting activity level, and are required to submit the log form to DEC by February 7. Instructions are provided on the permit and log form.
For additional information about the DMFA, including a map of the DFMA that includes boundaries, a description of available hunting lands, or to register and download a permit, carcass tags and a hunting activity log .
I don’t think this will make a difference in Cayuga Heights, where they are still fighting a battle over whether bow hunting is allowed. Under new proposed regulations, permission even for bow hunting “nuisance deer” will require consent from all neighbors within 500 feet of your property — what’s the chance of that?
Via Ithaca Journal:
A proposed law allowing bow shooting in the village was revised after it drew conflicting opinions from Cayuga Heights residents and elected officials.
Village efforts to reduce its deer herd have been contentious, leading to squabbles among neighbors and a lawsuit, which was decided in favor of the municipality.
The law wouldn’t allow open-season hunting in the village, Cayuga Heights Mayor Kate Supron said. It would, however, let residents kill nuisance deer with bow and arrow after getting deer damage permits, known as deer nuisance permits, from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Before killing deer, landowners also would need permission from property owners of all dwellings within a 500-foot radius, or 18 acres, of the shooting site, Supron said.
What you are seeing play out is the city/rural divide reflected also in the political landscape.
For now, I would advise the deer very strongly not to leave Cayuga Heights.
Unless, of course, they want to end up on a plate.
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Comments
STOP BAMBICIDE NOW!
“Gun, hell. I got one with a van! Just slow down to 55 miles per hour and they will run in front of you!”
Ron ‘tater salad’ White
Take a look at the recent history of deer in Lower Marion Township PA. They tried it all, then when to hunting .. restricted to bows and shotguns at night by specialists .. it is a suburban area after all.
Well, they could try introducing coyotes and let nature take its course.
Coyotes are opportunistic and generally go after fawns in the summer. Sometimes they will go after a doe during deer season when hunters have left deer offal behind as attractant and snack. Around us a coyote will go after a house pet more readily. We’ve got some aggressive coyotes around here…one followed me and our 12-year-old Labrador home for about a quarter mile about a year ago. I walked backwards the whole way–the coyote came right up the driveway to the house. We still get fawns who curl up behind the garage beside the hostas…the four deer from the other day were back this morning…. They’re pretty used to each other.
coyotes might get a fawn on occasion, but not often enough to make a difference. We have coyotes and still a ton of deer. And coyotes are a problem for small pets or smaller livestock. I sometimes hear packs of them howling at night, but the little fawns that each year think my garden is their home, have never been harmed.
That’s my experience, though we aren’t in heavy snow most years. This link seems to agree.
http://emammal.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/do-coyotes-cause-deer-declines/
In New Orleans they hunt the nutria in the canals at night. People need to be educated on how damaging over-population is to the “ecosystem”. Using a lot of green propaganda buzz words might help. Biodiversity, equality for underprivileged species, justice for the songbirds, protect the children of the hardwoods … etc. Or if “Killing” seems too harsh, just call it late term abortion for unwanted deer. 🙂
Lyme disease is also greatly reduced by reducing the deer population. Maybe Obama could use his pen and sign some executive orders on this issue. lol
Coyotes are pack animals and do quite well in an urban environment. They won’t bother with the deer when there are much easier targers like Fluffy and Fido around. NOT a good idea. You will now have two nuisances instead of one.
Here in NC coyotes tend to hunt alone or in pairs. Never once saw a pack.
yeah, when I hear them whelping at night, it sounds like a dozen … but I can see them trot by at times from my seat by the computer …. usually one, sometimes a couple. Trail cams have only shown one.
SMDH
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
This is nothing much: just stupidity.
You have not yet seen the transition to suicidal insanity, but it’s on the way. Wait till the predators—bears and cougars—come back in force.
By ‘suicidal stupidity’, I don’t mean individual self-destructiveness. I mean the lunatics’ insistence that the entire community self-destruct.
Send out the local tactical police at night with suppressed weapons and night vision. Donate the dead deer to the local soup kitchen or food bank. Real training for the PoPo and real meat for the needy. Win – win.
who could resist that face?
its standing there licking its lips telling you how tasty it is.
I don’t hunt (too messed up but never really was into it) but support it and family does, nothing better than venison burgers.
There exists in Tompkins County several Sportsman’s Clubs which would probably be more than happy to put together a joint effort to set up Deer Drives, moving the deer out of populated and regulated areas into near by open areas of Cornell U. property, if the intent is truly to “get rid” of the Deer. They would more than likely place the venison in the kitchen of county jails and food banks. But the fact is, it’s the “kill” of Bambi that the greater Cayuga Hgts. residents object to (as voiced at this weeks Village Board Meeting) while, as leftist are known to do, support whole- heartedly, human abortion.
Because we, the people, are the problem.
Reading about this “tragedy” forced me to reread the story about the guy who roped the deer. LOL!!
Then, of course, there’s I need a bambulance! (funny 911 call)
Bloomington had a controlled deer hunt in the 1990s. It was claimed there were many deer in the Hyland Park Preserve. After the first year’s successful hunt, “expert” shooters only on station at night and shooting down from elevated stands, the deer herd was larger. Each year, many more deer culled yet the herd grew. Go figure.
Maybe nature does in fact abhor a vacuum.
Maybe the deer rose to the challenge.
Illegal immigrant deer doing what American deer won’t.
Meat on the hoof! Why can’t the city generate some revenue by selling the meat?
Venison is good. Venison steak. Venison sausage. Yum!
Deer nuisance permits…what a frickin scam
Hunting for a limited time won’t solve a deer overpopulation problem. It’s just a more humane way of reducing the population at the margins. And yes, shooting deer is more humane than letting them starve to death.
But a healthy herd will rather rapidly replace the lost members, so hunting needs to go on long enough to effectively manage the population. In most cases, this means regular hunting seasons and occasional “doe days” from now on.
It’s normally called culling.
Mmmm…. Meatloaf made with ground venison and pork sausage, with home fries and hot biscuits/gravy on the side — lot’s of fried onions also! AND of course, a pot of black coffee.
It’s really hard to believe that common sense is being appealed to here – but it’s the humane way to keep those poor deer from starving to death due to over-population.
Erik Holder has responded, he feels this is a civil rights issue. The deer are being forced out of their neighborhood because of the color of their skin.
Time for the prof to fill his freezer!
Cue Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny.”
I’ve got a nice, brand new Ruger American in .270 Win. Perfect. But I’d be afraid to bring it to New York to help out.
Meanwhile, in Eastern Oregon we’ve got professional trappers culling the Puma Concolor to protect the expensively reintroduced Bighorn Sheep, and in Western Oregon, especially down south, we’ve got a plethora of black bears, thanks to the hunting restrictions (no hounds) put into place several years ago. Wildlife management by the ballot box.