ANOTHER YEAR FOR THE
DEER
Fire Island Deer Dodge The Bullet
…for now
By Jeannie Lieberman
The Deer Management
Project (Deer Hunt), aka The Ultimate Solution, which caused so much public
attention last summer, has been postponed until after Summer, ’17.
The deterrent is a
matter of funding.
“Our park is competing
with others across the country and a September budget planning meeting is scheduled”,
said Mike Bileki, Chief of Natural Resources Management.
He asserts that the
Ultimate Solution has been arrived at and will happen as soon as funds are
acquired. In the meantime they will continue studies of deer population, and
the impact on vegetation.
For those who have
forgotten:
The Deer Management Plan
Fire Island National Seashore has
announced their plan to shoot Fire Island’s deer, possibly killing two-thirds of the population, and reduce it to only 20-25 per
square mile.
FINS will
repeat this killing procedure periodically to maintain this level.
Deer
browsing management actions would include fencing of an area encompassing the
historic core at the William Floyd Estate (approximately 80 acres) and
small-scale fencing to protect special-status species, as well as enclosure
fencing in the Sunken Forest (approximately 44 acres of maritime holly forest).
The deer population would be reduced to an appropriate deer density to achieve
the plan objectives (estimated at 20-25 deer per square mile across Fire Island
and 20-25 deer per square mile at the William Floyd Estate) through a
combination of sharp shooting, capture and euthanasia of individual deer (where
appropriate), and public hunting (within the Fire Island Wilderness only).
John Di Leonardo,
president of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature, uses a bullhorn to lead
protesters in a chant of "Contraception over hunting," next to the Fire
Island National Seashore headquarters in Patchogue on Friday, Feb. 12, 2016.
Photo Credit: Joseph D. Sullivan
That
plan was met with fierce opposition and resulted in a petition that eventually
garnered more than 5,500 names and a protest on the grounds of the FINS
Patchogue office on Feb. 5, 2016
Rumor has
it that another element: “Deer observed approaching humans within the Fire
Island communities would be captured and euthanized to reduce the risk of
negative human-deer interactions and prevent other deer from learning this
behavior through observation”, has been temporarily abandoned due to public
outcry.
FINS is
deliberately ignoring animal advocates who have demonstrated that deer
control should be achieved solely through reproductive means, and an acceptable
vaccine already exists.
Fire Island is the
first place on earth where free-roaming deer have been successfully
contracepted with a remotely delivered dart. Between
1995 and 2009 the deer population was cut in half.
“That is matter for
the EPA to determine and they have not approved the drug…we have no contact with
them” reiterated Chief Bilecki.
Those who object to the hunt please follow link to petition below
https://www.change.org/p/once-again-let-s-stop-the-national-park-service-from-killing-deer-on-fire-island-and-risking-the-loss-of-the-sunken-forest-sign-the-petition
or
call 631 687 4751, 215 597 7059 to stop the hunt
More
about deer……..
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Fencing
As Deer
Chew Up Suburbs, Some Say a Good Fence Is the Best Defense
By LISA
W. FODERARO NOV. 4, 2016
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. —
Given her home’s location near the corner of Deertrack Lane and Whitetail Road, it should come as no surprise that Ellen Shapiro, an ardent gardener, had a
serious deer problem.
They were
eating her beloved hostas, nibbling the hydrangea and devouring the arborvitae.
It was maddening. But then she struck upon what so far has proved to be the
ultimate weapon: a deer fence. Now, the deer here look longingly at her lush
backyard through a six-foot mesh barrier that has restored her landscape and
sense of well-being.
“It cost
$5,000, but it was a good investment,” Ms. Shapiro said. “I had tried everything.”
Across
the New York region and in many other parts of the country, the population of
white-tailed deer has soared in recent years, driven by the abundance of food
in populous and heavily landscaped suburbs. The animals are eating their way
through local woodlands and suburban plots, feasting on flowers and shrubs and
menacing the tranquillity of backyard living.
Homeowners
have used all manner of methods to fend off the intruders — restricting their
diet to supposedly deer-resistant plants, spraying repellents like Liquid Fence
and Deer Away and installing ultrasonic devices that emit a high-pitched tone.
Some communities have even tried birth control. But the deer keep winning.
Many
homeowners are resorting to a simple, if ungainly, solution: putting up a
really big fence.
The
result is sometimes more penitentiary than pastoral, with six- to eight-foot
barriers looming over picket fences and low-rise hedges. But residents who
chose the nuclear option in the deer wars say it is the best, maybe the only,
way to stop the decimation of their gardens and reduce the threat of Lyme
disease, a potentially debilitating illness spread by deer ticks.
“It’s
very nice,” said Philip Whitney, who lives in Irvington, N.Y., and has
surrounded his 1.3-acre property with an eight-foot enclosure. Mr. Whitney was
describing the absence of deer, not the look of the fence. “It’s just
absolutely beautiful and peaceful,” he added.
From the
sylvan enclaves of Fairfield County in Connecticut to the bosky boroughs of
northern New Jersey, fence installers say that business is thriving,
particularly because deer are most active at this time of year, with the
breeding season peaking in mid-November.
A major
reason deer have proliferated is an increase in hunting restrictions fueled by
the spread of suburbs. In New Jersey, hunting with a firearm is prohibited
within 450 feet of an occupied structure, putting many areas off limits. In New
York State, where the deer population has ballooned to 900,000 from 450,000 in
the mid-1970s, officials here in Westchester County, which has densely packed
communities, allow only bow hunting.
Stephen
King, who owns Numat Fence in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., said orders for deer fencing
had jumped 30 percent in the past four years. “People were fed up well before
that,” Mr. King said. “But then some people started to do a deer fence and
others noticed it and decided to install it, too. Fencing has a domino effect.”
Some
municipalities restrict fence heights to six feet. Others allow eight-foot
fences, as long as they are not solid. From a distance, black mesh blends with
the landscape, but Mr. King conceded that the taller the fence, the more it
stands out.
“An
eight-foot-tall fence is overpowering, no matter what type you choose,” he
said. “But people are worried about Lyme disease and can’t plant anything and
so it’s a trade-off.”
In Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., where Mr. King has installed many deer fences in the past few
years, the village government had proposed culling the deer population through
lethal means. But after a fierce backlash from some residents, the mayor
decided to reduce the deer population through birth control, a time-consuming
process that began in early 2014.
While
about 50 deer have been tranquilized and injected with a contraceptive vaccine
so far, residents have yet to see any marked change. And without similar
efforts by neighboring Dobbs Ferry and Yonkers, it is unclear whether deer from
those municipalities will simply move into Hastings-on-Hudson.
In Greenwich,
Conn., Kim and John Conte, who own a landscape architecture business, erected
an eight-foot deer fence on an acre of their five-acre property last May. Mrs.
Conte said the fence was keeping out not only deer but also woodchucks and
coyotes.
Next
spring, the property is scheduled to be featured in a local garden tour. “So I
definitely don’t want deer in here over the winter, eating the evergreens in
our rock garden,” she said. “In the past, I had to net each.
The
fences, which often encircle an entire property, are expensive. A style that
features black netting fastened to black pipes runs $18 a foot, while a
so-called game fence, with 6-by-6-inch wire mesh panels, costs $22 a foot.
A faux
wrought-iron fence made from black aluminum can set its owner back as much as
an in-ground pool. Mr. Gannon said that installing such a fence on one acre,
with an electronic security gate across the driveway, costs about $40,000. “And
that’s not fancy,” he said.
That may
be why some homeowners choose to install a fence themselves. At Academy Fence
Company in Orange, N.J., deer fencing material is one of the company’s best
sellers. “We can’t keep it in stock,” Donna Del Master, the manager, said.
Mr.
Whitney of Irvington said the transformation in the landscape — particularly
his parents’ property, where he now lives — from when he was in high school to
when he returned as an adult motivated him to put up his fence.
“I have a
picture of what the yard used to look like,” he said. “It was pristine and
verdant, and shrubs were untouched by deer. In 2003, when I moved back here, it
was devastation. The shrubs were eaten down to nubs and were dead or dying.”
He tried
spraying the plants with a repellent containing egg yolk and garlic, but it
washed away after rain. “And the whole yard would stink,” he said.
Like
other homeowners, he felt the nudge toward a deer fence when a particular
flower succumbed to the deer's’ voracious appetite. “They were eating the
forsythia,” he said of the bright-yellow flowering shrub. “That’s when I
reached my breaking point.”
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