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Friends of WhiteTail
Car, deer collisions rise in 2006
By Mark Ginocchio Staff Writer Published February 2 2007
State officials said the one-year spike does not indicate a trend, but a Fairfield County coalition is concerned about the accidents, which more
than doubled in Greenwich, New Canaan and Darien.
The Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, made up of officials from 15 towns, reported 86 deer vs. car collisions in
Greenwich last year, compared with 38 in 2005. In New Canaan , 101 accidents were reported last year, compared with 44 a year earlier. In
Darien , 38 accidents were reported last year, compared with 16 in 2005.
The numbers were collected from state Department of Transportation reports, state police and municipal police departments, which often
respond to deer vs. car collisions, said Kent Haydock, public education chairman for the alliance and chairman of Darien 's Deer
Management Committee.
An increase in accidents could signal an increase in the deer population, Haydock said. The only way to manage the population is to kill the
deer, he said.
"We need to cull the deer but not eliminate them," Haydock said. "An increase in the deer population means more accidents on the roads and
more Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases."
Getting accurate statistics has been a challenge, Haydock said. For years, the state has underreported the number of deer vs. car collisions
because it tracks only the number of "road kills."
For example, from 2001 to 2005, DOT reported only 33 deer vs. car collisions in Greenwich , 45 in Darien and 58 in New Canaan .
Howard Kilpatrick, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said about 3,000 collisions were reported last
year, but estimates 15,000 went unreported.
The alliance started collecting reports from municipal police departments the past two years and discovered there were many more incidents
that were not reported by the state.
The system works for tracking the number of accidents in small towns, but larger cities such as Stamford , Norwalk and Bridgeport are
underreporting, Haydock said.
That's because such collisions are not as significant in the cities, said William Callion, Stamford public safety director and the city's
representative with the alliance.
"No one is immune to these problems, but we just don't have issues on the same scale as some of the towns," he said.
Though state officials do not dispute the alliance's statistics, they think there is not enough data to say the number of deer vs. car collisions is
increasing.
"You can never make that judgment just on one year," Kilpatrick said. "There are a lot of variables with deer densities," including weather
and the availability of food.
If the number increased over three to five years, that could indicate a trend, Kilpatrick said.
Some animal rights groups think the higher rate of accidents has been caused by increased hunting, which disturbs the deer population.
"They call it an overpopulation of deer . . . but the report is propaganda," said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals in Darien .
"Their logic is counterintuitive. More hunting causes deer to panic" and move around more, she said.
Bowhunter Scott Ragone of North Stamford said he has found fewer deer on private land in Greenwich .
"Going back five years ago or even three years ago, it wouldn't be uncommon to shoot two to three does and be done by nine o'clock in the
morning," Ragone said. "This year, I've seen very few, and most of them are very little deer."
For the season, Ragone, 39, has killed four deer, fewer than his average seasonal take of 10 to 15.
"I talk to a lot of hunters and everybody says the same thing," he said. "They are seeing less and less deer."
The DEP estimates that more deer vs. car collisions occur in Fairfield County than in any other part of the state. Almost 20 percent of all
collisions occur in Fairfield County , and no other part of Connecticut has more than 10 percent, Kilpatrick said.
About half of all the collisions happen from October to December, which is mating season.
By Mark Ginocchio Staff Writer Published February 2 2007
State officials said the one-year spike does not indicate a trend, but a Fairfield County coalition is concerned about the accidents, which more
than doubled in Greenwich, New Canaan and Darien.
The Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, made up of officials from 15 towns, reported 86 deer vs. car collisions in
Greenwich last year, compared with 38 in 2005. In New Canaan , 101 accidents were reported last year, compared with 44 a year earlier. In
Darien , 38 accidents were reported last year, compared with 16 in 2005.
The numbers were collected from state Department of Transportation reports, state police and municipal police departments, which often
respond to deer vs. car collisions, said Kent Haydock, public education chairman for the alliance and chairman of Darien 's Deer
Management Committee.
An increase in accidents could signal an increase in the deer population, Haydock said. The only way to manage the population is to kill the
deer, he said.
"We need to cull the deer but not eliminate them," Haydock said. "An increase in the deer population means more accidents on the roads and
more Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases."
Getting accurate statistics has been a challenge, Haydock said. For years, the state has underreported the number of deer vs. car collisions
because it tracks only the number of "road kills."
For example, from 2001 to 2005, DOT reported only 33 deer vs. car collisions in Greenwich , 45 in Darien and 58 in New Canaan .
Howard Kilpatrick, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said about 3,000 collisions were reported last
year, but estimates 15,000 went unreported.
The alliance started collecting reports from municipal police departments the past two years and discovered there were many more incidents
that were not reported by the state.
The system works for tracking the number of accidents in small towns, but larger cities such as Stamford , Norwalk and Bridgeport are
underreporting, Haydock said.
That's because such collisions are not as significant in the cities, said William Callion, Stamford public safety director and the city's
representative with the alliance.
"No one is immune to these problems, but we just don't have issues on the same scale as some of the towns," he said.
Though state officials do not dispute the alliance's statistics, they think there is not enough data to say the number of deer vs. car collisions is
increasing.
"You can never make that judgment just on one year," Kilpatrick said. "There are a lot of variables with deer densities," including weather
and the availability of food.
If the number increased over three to five years, that could indicate a trend, Kilpatrick said.
Some animal rights groups think the higher rate of accidents has been caused by increased hunting, which disturbs the deer population.
"They call it an overpopulation of deer . . . but the report is propaganda," said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals in Darien .
"Their logic is counterintuitive. More hunting causes deer to panic" and move around more, she said.
Bowhunter Scott Ragone of North Stamford said he has found fewer deer on private land in Greenwich .
"Going back five years ago or even three years ago, it wouldn't be uncommon to shoot two to three does and be done by nine o'clock in the
morning," Ragone said. "This year, I've seen very few, and most of them are very little deer."
For the season, Ragone, 39, has killed four deer, fewer than his average seasonal take of 10 to 15.
"I talk to a lot of hunters and everybody says the same thing," he said. "They are seeing less and less deer."
The DEP estimates that more deer vs. car collisions occur in Fairfield County than in any other part of the state. Almost 20 percent of all
collisions occur in Fairfield County , and no other part of Connecticut has more than 10 percent, Kilpatrick said.
About half of all the collisions happen from October to December, which is mating season.
Idea Of Processing Dead Deer To Feed Needy Runs Afoul Of Some Queasy Stomachs
February 28, 2007 By WILLIAM WEIR, Courant Staff Writer
Every now and then, Larry Grant gets a call from the Guilford Police Department: There's a deer on the road, they tell him. Want it?
Often, he does, and asks the cops to please wait until he gets there.
And then the race is on. Though he's one of about 20 folks on the department's rotating to-call list, Grant said there's a handful of others in
town always watching for venison on the cheap.
Grant works in Guilford but he lives in New Haven, so sometimes he has a 15-minute drive to beat the competition.
"I've got four or five friends who listen to the scanners, so when I get there, that deer's gone," he said. "So I'm not the only one picking
them off the side of the road."
"Roadkill" isn't the most appetizing term (Grant, for one, objects to it); it tends to elicit jokes about possum stew. But Connecticut has long
been home to a group of venison lovers who routinely seek out, and even compete for, the carcasses that result from deer-vehicle collisions.
A bill submitted to the state legislature this session might have further entrenched the practice. The idea was to set aside $30,000 to pay the
cost of processing deer meat (both hunted and killed on the road) for donations to soup kitchens. Butchers usually charge about $70 to
process the meat of an average-sized deer.
And, some say, why not? As long as it's picked up fresh, there's no difference between a deer killed by a bullet and one felled by a car. And
there's no shortage of it: According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, 18,000 deer are killed on Connecticut roads each
year - more than 49 a day.
State law allows Connecticut motorists to take home deer that they hit, as long as they report it to police and receive a receipt (the law was
expanded last year to include moose and bears). Receipts are issued for deer strikes only after the animal is inspected. If the motorist doesn't
want it, many police departments have a list of people who will take it.
"It's a great resource," said Grant, 51. "`Roadkill' is a designation by someone who's ignorant."
But "roadkill" is a hard sell, and some blame the charged term for the lack of enthusiasm the meat-processing bill has met.
The legislature's environmental committee recently notified the sponsor, Rep. Antonietta Boucher, R-Wilton, that it would not hear the
proposal this session. She said the roadkill part was one of the reasons given, even though the bill is aimed more at hunted meat.
Kenneth Dartley of Wilton, who helped Boucher draft the bill, said the roadkill aspect overshadowed the debate and doomed the bill. The
intent, he said, was to give hunters a way to help the state's needy. It was modeled after a system in New York state.
Boucher blamed a legislature loath to upset animal rights organizations. Though it could still be attached to another bill, Boucher said it's
more likely her bill will be resubmitted at a later date and re-written to include only meat from hunted deer.
"It's unfortunate that people weren't a little more open-minded," she said.
The animal rights group Friends of Animals was quick to denounce the bill. Though she is against the idea of eating roadkill in general,
group President Priscilla Feral said she's mainly opposed to feeding deer meat of any kind to the hungry.
"There's no shortage of food here in Connecticut," she said. "I don't think deer are for human consumption." It's demeaning to the less
fortunate, she said, to feed them "flesh animals that no one wants to eat."
Don't tell that to Joe DesLauries. He's been on Coventry's to-call list for years. You can't beat the price - free - but the results can be a
mixed bag. Depending on how a vehicle hits a deer, a good portion of the meat can get bruised. But if the deer dies from a head injury,
DesLauries said, you can end up with enough meat to last weeks.
Some food banks in the state already serve venison, most of it provided by Connecticut hunters. Nancy Carrington, executive director of the
Connecticut Food Bank, said her organization has received about 1,000 pounds of venison this hunting season through Hunt to Feed, a
program run by WhiteTail Solutions, a company in Oxford.
Boucher's bill would have been welcome, she said. Unlike dry goods and canned food that can stay on the shelf indefinitely, meat is always
in demand at food banks, she said.
"We're always looking for sources of protein - that's something that we never have enough of," she said.
She's a little iffy on the matter of roadkill deer, but as long as it meets the standards of certified butchers, the food bank might accept it. It
doesn't take any now because Hunt to Feed doesn't provide it - the damage to the meat makes the process of butchering, cutting around
bruised portions, too tedious, she said.
Warren Speh of the Connecticut chapter of Hunters for the Hungry, another organization that donates venison, understands that roadkill is a
touchy subject. He eats it himself and says it's fine, but his organization gives away only hunted meat. Otherwise, animal rights groups might
make it an issue, he said.
"Because of the stigma that they may attach to it, we don't do it," said Speh, who lives in Stonington.
But Grant, who also hunts, said he has a list of families who are grateful for any venison he can offer. "I share it with people who are
having a hard time financially," he said, sitting at the island in his kitchen where he butchers his deer. "You're looking at up to 20 to 30
meals for someone who can't afford to buy ground meat."
He's got a meat grinder and a system for vacuum-packaging the meat in plastic. He dismissed complaints that venison is too gamy, saying
that, done right, it's better than steak. And it's low in cholesterol.
One thing he can't stand is seeing the orange tags placed by state workers on unclaimed deer. The tags indicate to Grant a valuable resource
wasted. People who hit a deer, he said, have a moral responsibility to report it. If they can't use it, he said, "absolutely, they have an
obligation to find someone who can use it."
Pat Durkin column: Deer whistles fall on deaf ears
Given our hunger for over-the-counter solutions to everything from bunions to baldness, perhaps it's no surprise that people continue to buy
deer whistles for their cars nearly 20 years after science discredited the cheap bumper ornaments.
After all, if people would rather buy wonder pills than give up foods that make them fat, gassy or prone to heartburn, why wouldn't they
seek painless solutions to deer-vehicle collisions?
Plus, given these crashes kill about 200 Americans each year, boost our insurance rates ever higher in deer-rich counties and require about
$2,000 in repairs after an "average" collision, who wouldn't be tempted by placebos?
But if you really believe deer whistles protect you from jaywalking whitetails, you probably also think they're technological forerunners to
Captain Kirk's force field on the Starship Enterprise.
Why don't deer whistles work as advertised? Hmm. Where to start? How about with deer behavior. Have you heard the expression, "as
frustrating as herding cats?" The only reason to mention cats is that deer make lousy house pets. When startled or frightened, whitetails leap
in unpredictable directions, change their minds in a nanosecond and bound the opposite way.
In that regard, they're much like presidential candidates.
Next, consider the deer's sense of hearing. Deer whistle manufacturers claim their products emit ultrasonic sounds that deer, but not humans,
can hear. That's curious, because widespread research indicates that although deer detect normal sounds better than humans, they're little
better at detecting ultrasonic frequencies.
Recent research into deer whistles and deer hearing by Sharon Valitzski, a graduate student at the University of Georgia, verified that
suspicion. Using semi-tame deer at the university's research facility, Valitzski and others broadcast five sound frequencies at levels greater
than 70 decibels, and made 406 observations of how the deer responded.
When addressing the 30th annual Southeast Deer Study Group meeting last week in Ocean City, Md., Valitzski reported: "Deer could hear
sound in this (ultrasonic) range, but they couldn't hear it very well. It had to heard at 70 decibels in order to be registered by deer."
Next, researchers mounted sound-generating equipment to a 1993 Buick station wagon and drove past observation points on Georgia's deer-
congested Berry College Wildlife Refuge to see how deer responded. They also tested the deer by driving past with their sound equipment
turned off.
After recording 319 test observations on the various sounds, two of which were ultrasonic, Valitzski reported only one sound produced a
statistical difference in deer behaviors: a low-frequency bass sound. Yes, much like the thumping you hear when youngsters drive by with
music vibrating their windows.
Before you download the nastiest rap or hard rock music from iTunes for your car stereo, read what else Valitzski said about bass sounds:
"Deer exposed to this sound were more likely to cause a motor-vehicle collision than they were to prevent one."
Remember the "herding cats" analogy? Most hunters tell similar stories. Who hasn't fired a gun at a deer and had it run straight at them?
Flight responses can't be predicted.
Even so, the responses Valitzski recorded were yawns compared to one generated at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1980s by Tim
Lawhern, then a graduate student. Lawhern, now the administrator of hunter education for the Department of Natural Resources, tested deer
whistles on seven species of deer, including elk and whitetails.
When Lawhern created a shrill sound from one of the whistles — a sound humans also can hear — a bull elk charged him. Fortunately,
Lawhern was on the other side of the facility's fence. The bull slammed into the fence, snapping off a 2-by-4 fence post. The enraged animal
then bugled and urinated.
Is that road rage or what?
Most of us can relate. Who hasn't been tempted to respond impolitely when someone pulls alongside in heavy traffic with their car pulsating
with sounds that could sterilize frogs?
Given our hunger for over-the-counter solutions to everything from bunions to baldness, perhaps it's no surprise that people continue to buy
deer whistles for their cars nearly 20 years after science discredited the cheap bumper ornaments.
After all, if people would rather buy wonder pills than give up foods that make them fat, gassy or prone to heartburn, why wouldn't they
seek painless solutions to deer-vehicle collisions?
Plus, given these crashes kill about 200 Americans each year, boost our insurance rates ever higher in deer-rich counties and require about
$2,000 in repairs after an "average" collision, who wouldn't be tempted by placebos?
But if you really believe deer whistles protect you from jaywalking whitetails, you probably also think they're technological forerunners to
Captain Kirk's force field on the Starship Enterprise.
Why don't deer whistles work as advertised? Hmm. Where to start? How about with deer behavior. Have you heard the expression, "as
frustrating as herding cats?" The only reason to mention cats is that deer make lousy house pets. When startled or frightened, whitetails leap
in unpredictable directions, change their minds in a nanosecond and bound the opposite way.
In that regard, they're much like presidential candidates.
Next, consider the deer's sense of hearing. Deer whistle manufacturers claim their products emit ultrasonic sounds that deer, but not humans,
can hear. That's curious, because widespread research indicates that although deer detect normal sounds better than humans, they're little
better at detecting ultrasonic frequencies.
Recent research into deer whistles and deer hearing by Sharon Valitzski, a graduate student at the University of Georgia, verified that
suspicion. Using semi-tame deer at the university's research facility, Valitzski and others broadcast five sound frequencies at levels greater
than 70 decibels, and made 406 observations of how the deer responded.
When addressing the 30th annual Southeast Deer Study Group meeting last week in Ocean City, Md., Valitzski reported: "Deer could hear
sound in this (ultrasonic) range, but they couldn't hear it very well. It had to heard at 70 decibels in order to be registered by deer."
Next, researchers mounted sound-generating equipment to a 1993 Buick station wagon and drove past observation points on Georgia's deer-
congested Berry College Wildlife Refuge to see how deer responded. They also tested the deer by driving past with their sound equipment
turned off.
After recording 319 test observations on the various sounds, two of which were ultrasonic, Valitzski reported only one sound produced a
statistical difference in deer behaviors: a low-frequency bass sound. Yes, much like the thumping you hear when youngsters drive by with
music vibrating their windows.
Before you download the nastiest rap or hard rock music from iTunes for your car stereo, read what else Valitzski said about bass sounds:
"Deer exposed to this sound were more likely to cause a motor-vehicle collision than they were to prevent one."
Remember the "herding cats" analogy? Most hunters tell similar stories. Who hasn't fired a gun at a deer and had it run straight at them?
Flight responses can't be predicted.
Even so, the responses Valitzski recorded were yawns compared to one generated at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1980s by Tim
Lawhern, then a graduate student. Lawhern, now the administrator of hunter education for the Department of Natural Resources, tested deer
whistles on seven species of deer, including elk and whitetails.
When Lawhern created a shrill sound from one of the whistles — a sound humans also can hear — a bull elk charged him. Fortunately,
Lawhern was on the other side of the facility's fence. The bull slammed into the fence, snapping off a 2-by-4 fence post. The enraged animal
then bugled and urinated.
Is that road rage or what?
Most of us can relate. Who hasn't been tempted to respond impolitely when someone pulls alongside in heavy traffic with their car pulsating
with sounds that could sterilize frogs?
Roadkill: A Matter Of Taste
In Swelling Herds, A Growing Risk
Larger Va. Deer Population Making Lyme Disease a Public Health Issue
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page C01
A surge in reported cases of Lyme disease in Fairfax County has prompted an outcry from residents who say the lawns and woodlands
surrounding their homes are overrun with infected ticks and the deer that carry them.
The exponential increase has also led county health officials to acknowledge that managing Fairfax's burgeoning deer population, which in
some locations has numbered 400 per square mile, is no longer about nuisance control. It has become a serious public health issue that
requires immediate attention, they say.
"Deer are the Metro system for the ticks" that carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, said Jorge R. Arias, who
manages Fairfax's disease-carrying-insect program. "The ticks are all over the county. Wherever the deer can go, they will take the ticks with
them."
Confirmed cases of Lyme disease, which is characterized by such varied symptoms as a bull's-eye-shaped rash, fever and fatigue, rose from
three in 2004 to 82 in 2006, according to county data. Much of the increase is due to better reporting of a disease that is often quickly treated
with antibiotics without being confirmed by blood tests. Still, public health officials say there is little doubt that case numbers are rising locally
and nationally.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported cases rose from 19,800 in 2004 to 23,300 in 2005. Cases
remain relatively low in Virginia -- 274 in 2005 compared with numbers in the thousands in such Northeastern states as Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.
Larger Va. Deer Population Making Lyme Disease a Public Health Issue
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page C01
A surge in reported cases of Lyme disease in Fairfax County has prompted an outcry from residents who say the lawns and woodlands
surrounding their homes are overrun with infected ticks and the deer that carry them.
The exponential increase has also led county health officials to acknowledge that managing Fairfax's burgeoning deer population, which in
some locations has numbered 400 per square mile, is no longer about nuisance control. It has become a serious public health issue that
requires immediate attention, they say.
"Deer are the Metro system for the ticks" that carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, said Jorge R. Arias, who
manages Fairfax's disease-carrying-insect program. "The ticks are all over the county. Wherever the deer can go, they will take the ticks with
them."
Confirmed cases of Lyme disease, which is characterized by such varied symptoms as a bull's-eye-shaped rash, fever and fatigue, rose from
three in 2004 to 82 in 2006, according to county data. Much of the increase is due to better reporting of a disease that is often quickly treated
with antibiotics without being confirmed by blood tests. Still, public health officials say there is little doubt that case numbers are rising locally
and nationally.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported cases rose from 19,800 in 2004 to 23,300 in 2005. Cases
remain relatively low in Virginia -- 274 in 2005 compared with numbers in the thousands in such Northeastern states as Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.
In The News
But the increase in the Washington region is causing growing concern. Loudoun County claims half of all reported cases in Virginia. In
Maryland, Montgomery County has seen confirmed cases grow fivefold since 2004, to 216.
And the very neighborhoods where deer are least welcome might be attracting the tick-carrying herds.
"Suburban lots with azaleas and rhododendrons is just like laying out a buffet for deer," Arias said. "We have created in suburbia what is
essentially a perfect habitat for them." That, in turn, has created the perfect environment for transmitting the bacteria to humans, he said.
Country Club Manor in Centreville, a neighborhood of 20-year-old colonials on the edge of Cub Run Stream Valley Park, is riddled with
hoof prints and deer droppings. The lower branches of dozens of shrubs are stripped bare. The lawn of Deer Park Elementary School is
littered with torn grass tufts, a telltale sign of deer grazing. It is not unusual, neighbors say, to see a herd of 12 or more deer ambling down
the road in broad daylight.
Nor is it unusual to pull a tick from one's body after gardening or playing in the yard with grandchildren, said resident Robert E. Jakubowski.
It has become a way of life on Pamela Drive to tuck trousers into socks, apply insect repellent and perform a full-body check for the tiny
nymphs, or baby ticks, that usually transmit the disease, he said.
Lyme disease has become a way of life, too. Jakubowski is one of 13 people within a one-block radius who say they have been treated for
Lyme disease in the past two years. Jakubowski has been treated three times, he said. A few doors down, Sally L. Pekarik spent eight days
in June in the intensive care unit at Reston Hospital Center after flulike symptoms prompted a Lyme disease diagnosis.
"The deer population has been out of control for years," Jakubowski said. "There have been minimal attempts to control it."
Fairfax launched a deer management program about a decade ago after several traffic accidents involving deer made headlines. The county
sponsors managed hunts during the winter months, during which screened applicants participate in a daytime hunt on parkland. Separately,
police sharpshooters "cull" herds on overnight expeditions several times a year.
But the results are limited, said Earl L. Hodnett, the county's wildlife biologist, who noted that most county parks where deer are counted
remain far from his goal of no more than 15 to 20 deer per square mile. Officials are limited to parkland where firearms pose little risk to
people but where shooters have limited access to deer, which are not constrained by public boundaries. Managed hunts in January and
February netted 133 deer. An additional 48 deer have been killed in four sharpshooting events this year.
Despite Fairfax County's efforts to control the deer population, the animals are an increasing presence, stripping branches bare and causing
concern about Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks.
Despite Fairfax County's efforts to control the deer population, the animals are an increasing presence, stripping branches bare and causing
concern about Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks. "The ticks are all over the county," a county health official said. (Photos By
Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
"We're starting out with a big problem," Hodnett said. "There's no easy way to quickly fix a problem that's been building since the mid-'80s."
There's also no easy way with no staff, Hodnett said. In the early years, Hodnett had a part-time assistant, but the job has not been filled for
several years. And although the county's deer population seemed to be decreasing in the years after the program began, numbers are on the
rise again, he said.
"We are losing ground where we had gained," he said.
Fairfax supervisors are likely to include money in next year's county budget to hire an assistant for Hodnett as well as two part-time
workers. Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully) has led the push.
Frey said he has not always supported the county's herd-thinning efforts, which he has viewed as more of a "feel-good" policy than effective
control. Shooting deer in Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville doesn't reduce car accidents in Great Falls, he said. He also noted that until
now, he viewed deer as more of a nuisance than a health risk and was less willing to devote more county dollars to the problem.
"A car collision with deer, while tragic, I don't know that it's avoidable in an area like McLean," he said. "You're never going to be able to
hunt deer in an area like that. But in areas with large herds, when you see a huge spike in Lyme disease, that sort of puts it in a different
perspective. We need to increase the efforts to reduce the herd size."
Officials also want to know more about the true prevalence of Lyme disease at a time when reporting efforts are unreliable. State and local
officials are stepping up surveillance of deer and ticks to better understand how widespread disease-carrying ticks are. (An analysis last year
of 500 deer ticks collected across Fairfax showed that about 15 percent carried the bacteria, Arias said.) They are working with doctors to
improve reporting of Lyme disease. And they plan to improve public education about preventing infection by wearing proper clothing and
applying insect repellent.
But all agree the problem cannot be erased overnight.
"Eradicating the deer herd is probably not achievable," said Frey, who counted more than 40 deer on a recent daytime tour of Cub Run
Stream Valley Park. "Short of shutting down the parks and hunting 24 hours a day, I'm not sure how much we can do."
Maryland, Montgomery County has seen confirmed cases grow fivefold since 2004, to 216.
And the very neighborhoods where deer are least welcome might be attracting the tick-carrying herds.
"Suburban lots with azaleas and rhododendrons is just like laying out a buffet for deer," Arias said. "We have created in suburbia what is
essentially a perfect habitat for them." That, in turn, has created the perfect environment for transmitting the bacteria to humans, he said.
Country Club Manor in Centreville, a neighborhood of 20-year-old colonials on the edge of Cub Run Stream Valley Park, is riddled with
hoof prints and deer droppings. The lower branches of dozens of shrubs are stripped bare. The lawn of Deer Park Elementary School is
littered with torn grass tufts, a telltale sign of deer grazing. It is not unusual, neighbors say, to see a herd of 12 or more deer ambling down
the road in broad daylight.
Nor is it unusual to pull a tick from one's body after gardening or playing in the yard with grandchildren, said resident Robert E. Jakubowski.
It has become a way of life on Pamela Drive to tuck trousers into socks, apply insect repellent and perform a full-body check for the tiny
nymphs, or baby ticks, that usually transmit the disease, he said.
Lyme disease has become a way of life, too. Jakubowski is one of 13 people within a one-block radius who say they have been treated for
Lyme disease in the past two years. Jakubowski has been treated three times, he said. A few doors down, Sally L. Pekarik spent eight days
in June in the intensive care unit at Reston Hospital Center after flulike symptoms prompted a Lyme disease diagnosis.
"The deer population has been out of control for years," Jakubowski said. "There have been minimal attempts to control it."
Fairfax launched a deer management program about a decade ago after several traffic accidents involving deer made headlines. The county
sponsors managed hunts during the winter months, during which screened applicants participate in a daytime hunt on parkland. Separately,
police sharpshooters "cull" herds on overnight expeditions several times a year.
But the results are limited, said Earl L. Hodnett, the county's wildlife biologist, who noted that most county parks where deer are counted
remain far from his goal of no more than 15 to 20 deer per square mile. Officials are limited to parkland where firearms pose little risk to
people but where shooters have limited access to deer, which are not constrained by public boundaries. Managed hunts in January and
February netted 133 deer. An additional 48 deer have been killed in four sharpshooting events this year.
Despite Fairfax County's efforts to control the deer population, the animals are an increasing presence, stripping branches bare and causing
concern about Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks.
Despite Fairfax County's efforts to control the deer population, the animals are an increasing presence, stripping branches bare and causing
concern about Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks. "The ticks are all over the county," a county health official said. (Photos By
Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
"We're starting out with a big problem," Hodnett said. "There's no easy way to quickly fix a problem that's been building since the mid-'80s."
There's also no easy way with no staff, Hodnett said. In the early years, Hodnett had a part-time assistant, but the job has not been filled for
several years. And although the county's deer population seemed to be decreasing in the years after the program began, numbers are on the
rise again, he said.
"We are losing ground where we had gained," he said.
Fairfax supervisors are likely to include money in next year's county budget to hire an assistant for Hodnett as well as two part-time
workers. Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully) has led the push.
Frey said he has not always supported the county's herd-thinning efforts, which he has viewed as more of a "feel-good" policy than effective
control. Shooting deer in Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville doesn't reduce car accidents in Great Falls, he said. He also noted that until
now, he viewed deer as more of a nuisance than a health risk and was less willing to devote more county dollars to the problem.
"A car collision with deer, while tragic, I don't know that it's avoidable in an area like McLean," he said. "You're never going to be able to
hunt deer in an area like that. But in areas with large herds, when you see a huge spike in Lyme disease, that sort of puts it in a different
perspective. We need to increase the efforts to reduce the herd size."
Officials also want to know more about the true prevalence of Lyme disease at a time when reporting efforts are unreliable. State and local
officials are stepping up surveillance of deer and ticks to better understand how widespread disease-carrying ticks are. (An analysis last year
of 500 deer ticks collected across Fairfax showed that about 15 percent carried the bacteria, Arias said.) They are working with doctors to
improve reporting of Lyme disease. And they plan to improve public education about preventing infection by wearing proper clothing and
applying insect repellent.
But all agree the problem cannot be erased overnight.
"Eradicating the deer herd is probably not achievable," said Frey, who counted more than 40 deer on a recent daytime tour of Cub Run
Stream Valley Park. "Short of shutting down the parks and hunting 24 hours a day, I'm not sure how much we can do."
Danbury News-Times Saturday, November 17, 2007
Driver has scary encounter with deer
- by Susan Tuz, Staff Writer
Ridgefield Jolene Drukker had just dropped off four cheerleaders at Ridgefield High School when the most bizarre experience of her
life occurred. She was driving south on Route 116 at 6:30pm Tuesday when a car coming north struck a deer. The animal was
catapulted into the air and crashed through the front window of the 2007 Ford Explorer that Drukker was driving, said her husband,
Austin Drukker. Glass hit Jolene Drukker’s face, eyes and hair as the deer flew past her, between the front seats, over the middle
passenger seats, over the third seat, and blew out the rear window, her husband said.
“The deer then ran 35 feet down the road before it dropped,” Austin Drukker said. “Jolene had to be taken to the hospital by
ambulance to have the glass removed from her eyes, her face and her hair. Her face was covered with blood. We thought it was hers,
but it was apparently from the deer.”
Drukker said his wife was treated and released from Danbury Hospital and was grateful the girls were not in the car with her when the
accident occurred.
Driver has scary encounter with deer
- by Susan Tuz, Staff Writer
Ridgefield Jolene Drukker had just dropped off four cheerleaders at Ridgefield High School when the most bizarre experience of her
life occurred. She was driving south on Route 116 at 6:30pm Tuesday when a car coming north struck a deer. The animal was
catapulted into the air and crashed through the front window of the 2007 Ford Explorer that Drukker was driving, said her husband,
Austin Drukker. Glass hit Jolene Drukker’s face, eyes and hair as the deer flew past her, between the front seats, over the middle
passenger seats, over the third seat, and blew out the rear window, her husband said.
“The deer then ran 35 feet down the road before it dropped,” Austin Drukker said. “Jolene had to be taken to the hospital by
ambulance to have the glass removed from her eyes, her face and her hair. Her face was covered with blood. We thought it was hers,
but it was apparently from the deer.”
Drukker said his wife was treated and released from Danbury Hospital and was grateful the girls were not in the car with her when the
accident occurred.
Hunting Saves Lives
Sports Zlotnicki: Mike Zlotnicki, Staff Writer Raleigh-Durham NC
Which animal, besides man, kills more humans in the U.S. each year than any other?
Bears? Alligators? Cougars? El chupacabra?
Try white-tailed deer.
According to a study by the Insurance Information Institute, more than 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions take place in this country each
year, killing more than 150 occupants and causing more than $1 billion in vehicle damage. From 2005 to 2006, the top states for
Bambi-and-Buick encounters were Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Minnesota, Texas, Indiana and South Carolina.
North Carolina's Department of Transportation does not differentiate deer from other animals in data collection, but Cliff Braam of the DOT
said that out of more than 17,000 "animal crashes" reported in 2006, approximately 90 percent were deer. The top county was Wake,
followed by Guilford, Duplin, Rockingham and Johnston. From 2004 to 2006, 17 people in North Carolina died as the result of deer
collisions.
Which leads me to an e-mail message from Mack Moore of Rocky Mount. Moore, an avid hunter, took exception to a brief that ran Oct. 2
in The News & Observer's City & State section that mentioned the "confluence of hunting season, mating season, cooler weather and the
scattering of young male deer seeking a new place to live" as reasons for the heavy highway harvest.
"How many deer have you caused to run out in front of a car?" he wrote. "Do the deer see you 'take to the woods' and decide it would be
better that they just give up and commit suicide rather than face your arrow? Neither hunting, hunting pressure, nor hunting season plays any
part whatsoever in the estimated 17,000 deer-auto collisions in North Carolina."
Moore went on to cite development and the search for food as major causes. The rut (mating season) probably is the biggest contributor.
"That's really it," he wrote, just a tad peeved. "Food, breeding activity. And us humans driving our vehicles in areas where the deer are just
trying to live."
And he's right. A scenario hunters love to see -- a buck chasing a doe -- often ends up with the doe running across a road and getting tagged
by a car and the buck merely turning to look for another doe to flirt with. The only scenario in which I can see hunters pushing deer into
roads would be those in which deer hunters use hounds in the eastern part of the state, and even then I can't see it being a major factor.
Those guys don't want their hounds getting hit by traffic, and they often line the roads to catch dogs before accidents can happen. No,
hunters saved lives by killing (not "harvesting" -- I harvest vegetables, I kill deer) over 240,000 of deer last year. Moore wrote, "The articles
should mention hunting in a way that goes something like this: Thank God for hunters, for without their efforts, many more deer-auto
collisions would occur, causing more property damage, higher auto insurance rates for us all, and unnecessary injuries and deaths."
Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank a deer hunter. The life he or she saves could be your own.
Sports Zlotnicki: Mike Zlotnicki, Staff Writer Raleigh-Durham NC
Which animal, besides man, kills more humans in the U.S. each year than any other?
Bears? Alligators? Cougars? El chupacabra?
Try white-tailed deer.
According to a study by the Insurance Information Institute, more than 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions take place in this country each
year, killing more than 150 occupants and causing more than $1 billion in vehicle damage. From 2005 to 2006, the top states for
Bambi-and-Buick encounters were Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Minnesota, Texas, Indiana and South Carolina.
North Carolina's Department of Transportation does not differentiate deer from other animals in data collection, but Cliff Braam of the DOT
said that out of more than 17,000 "animal crashes" reported in 2006, approximately 90 percent were deer. The top county was Wake,
followed by Guilford, Duplin, Rockingham and Johnston. From 2004 to 2006, 17 people in North Carolina died as the result of deer
collisions.
Which leads me to an e-mail message from Mack Moore of Rocky Mount. Moore, an avid hunter, took exception to a brief that ran Oct. 2
in The News & Observer's City & State section that mentioned the "confluence of hunting season, mating season, cooler weather and the
scattering of young male deer seeking a new place to live" as reasons for the heavy highway harvest.
"How many deer have you caused to run out in front of a car?" he wrote. "Do the deer see you 'take to the woods' and decide it would be
better that they just give up and commit suicide rather than face your arrow? Neither hunting, hunting pressure, nor hunting season plays any
part whatsoever in the estimated 17,000 deer-auto collisions in North Carolina."
Moore went on to cite development and the search for food as major causes. The rut (mating season) probably is the biggest contributor.
"That's really it," he wrote, just a tad peeved. "Food, breeding activity. And us humans driving our vehicles in areas where the deer are just
trying to live."
And he's right. A scenario hunters love to see -- a buck chasing a doe -- often ends up with the doe running across a road and getting tagged
by a car and the buck merely turning to look for another doe to flirt with. The only scenario in which I can see hunters pushing deer into
roads would be those in which deer hunters use hounds in the eastern part of the state, and even then I can't see it being a major factor.
Those guys don't want their hounds getting hit by traffic, and they often line the roads to catch dogs before accidents can happen. No,
hunters saved lives by killing (not "harvesting" -- I harvest vegetables, I kill deer) over 240,000 of deer last year. Moore wrote, "The articles
should mention hunting in a way that goes something like this: Thank God for hunters, for without their efforts, many more deer-auto
collisions would occur, causing more property damage, higher auto insurance rates for us all, and unnecessary injuries and deaths."
Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank a deer hunter. The life he or she saves could be your own.
Sixty-five years ago, Walt Disney’s “Bambi” put a soft spot in people’s hearts for deer. So Dr. Georgina Scholl may not find
instant support when she asks the state this week to consider reducing deer numbers in the state through increased hunting,
euthanization, land management practices or other means. Scholl — vice-chairwoman of the Connecticut Coalition to
Eradicate Lyme Disease, an organization of 18 municipalities primarily in Fairfield County — believes reducing the deer
population is critical to stopping the “unnecessary epidemic” of Lyme disease in the state. The CCELD is an outgrowth of the
Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, which was created in 2004. Lyme disease is spread by black-legged ticks
carried by deer and can cause a bull’s-eye rash and flu-like symptoms. If left untreated, it can cause arthritis and neurologic
and heart problems. And, according to the Centers for Disease Control, there were approximately 55,000 new physician-
confirmed cases of Lyme disease this year in Connecticut alone. Lyme disease also poses high costs to the state in medical bills
and days infected individuals stay home from work. Residents must also pay for deer sprays, tick repellents and fencing, as well
as vehicle damage by deer in accidents and higher car insurance premiums. With this in mind, three Valley political leaders
recently joined in the CCELD’s statewide initiative by signing their names on a letter urging Gov. M. Jodi Rell to reduce deer
populations.
“If (the deer) become that much of a nuisance, then why not allow hunters to be involved in their sport,” said Shelton Mayor
Mark Lauretti. “That’s been going on for hundreds of years in this country, so I see that as a viable option.” State law permits
bowhunting of deer from mid-September to the end of December, with different chunks of time specified for state land, state
land bowhunting-only areas and private land. Shotgun hunting is allowed between mid-November and early December and
requires a special lottery permit. Shotgun or rifle hunting on private lands is allowed between Nov. 14 and Dec. 4, or from Nov.
1 to Dec. 31 for landowners. Finally, muzzleloader hunting is permitted on state and private land from Dec. 5 to 18. For all
types of hunting, the state mandates strict “bag limits,” between one and four deer. Robert Crook, a lobbyist and spokesman
for the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, said he agreed with the CCELD’s assertion that there’s a “direct correlation
between the amount of Lyme disease and the number of deer” and said he would support relaxing restrictions on hunting to
address the issue. “Right now there is not proper management of deer in at least two zones in the state, mostly along the
shoreline,” he said. “The only way to take care of that is to allow more hunters in the field or the same amount of hunters more
time. We’re pushing for Sunday hunting,” which is currently banned. Crook noted that a bill on the matter died in the General
Public Health Committee. Crook said he expects another similar bill to be brought this year or next to the Environment
Committee, where he said, “I’m almost positive it will get out of there with a very, very high, if not, unanimous vote.”
Scholl did not focus on hunting or any other means of reducing deer numbers during her presentation to the Valley leaders last
week, nor does she plan to make specific recommendations when she meets with the governor’s staff. Her aim, she said, is to
make the government aware of research on the relationship between deer, ticks and Lyme disease, much of which was
conducted by Dr. Kirby Stafford, vice director and chief entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in
New Haven. “The Department of Public Health should analyze and filter all the information, all the science, and they should
come out with a summary statement position that people can trust, so there’s a reliable source of information,” she said.
“That way, people are not going to be vulnerable to persuasion by special interest groups.” Killing more deer is not the answer,
according to animal rights organizations. “If you look at the scientific information that’s out there and the studies that have
been done, they show that you cannot control Lyme disease by recreationally hunting deer,” said Laura Simon, field director
for the Urban Wildlife Program for the Humane Society of the United States. “It’s been tried and it doesn’t work unless you
virtually eradicate the deer, which is just not possible, practical or desirable.” Deer densities in Connecticut are currently
between 27 and 50 per square mile, said Simon. “This would be a war zone if you tried to knock back the deer population in
Connecticut that low (to a level identified in research as necessary to eradicate the disease),” she said. “People will not tolerate
that kind of gunfire in their backyards.” Moreover, she said, killing off deer will not eradicate Lyme disease because ticks can
simply find other hosts. In addition, deer are able to quickly regenerate their populations if they start to decline. Simon
suggested what she sees as a better alternative: installing “Four Poster” stations. The stations draw deer to them with food, then
spray a pesticide on their necks.
“So basically, the deer help you by becoming a tick-killing machine,” she said.
She cited Stafford’s research, which she said showed that “this is a very effective way to kill a high proportion of ticks.”
Stafford supports Scholl’s claim that reducing the number of deer can help eradicate the disease.
“I think it’s clear there’s a strong link between deer abundance and the abundance of this tick (that carries the disease),” he
said. “It is clear you have to get the deer down in that area of eight to 12 to 15 deer per square mile to see a noticeable impact
on the disease.”
Stafford also agreed that the Four Poster method has been shown to be effective.
There are issues of concern with both approaches, however, Stafford noted.
With the deer-reduction approach, he said, “You have to have the community willing and proactive in initiating a program to
actually reduce the deer population, and it has to be sustained.” Barriers to achieving the reduction include “people’s
conflicting attitudes in terms of managing wildlife,” local laws that may restrict hunter access, and “real or perceived safety or
liability issues, with hunting” he said.
While the Four Posters are effective, they are expensive to run and maintain, said Stafford. Their use is also restricted by
Environmental Protection Agency rules on pesticide use near homes or schools. Furthermore, he said, there is some concern
that Four Posters, which encourage deer to concentrate their feeding in a few sites, could facilitate the spread of chronic wasting
disease among deer. However, he noted, Chronic wasting disease is not yet a problem in Connecticut.
State deer population caught in Lyme disease cross hairs
By Lauren Garrison
The commonly accepted view of deer as friendly, graceful and peaceful animals is being challenged this week. The reason: Lyme disease.
In an effort to control the risk of Lyme disease — the tick-borne infectious agent that is increasingly being transmitted by Connecticut’s
deer population — Georgina Scholl, research chair of the Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, is lobbying the state to
ease regulations on deer hunting. Scholl’s proposal, which was presented to Gov. M. Jodi Rell this week, urges legislators to lengthen the
hunting season beyond mid-September, to the end of December, and to increase bag sizes — the number of deer that hunters can shoot in
a season. Lyme disease — which is carried by the common deer tick, Borrelia burgdorferi, and the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis —
can progress quickly from an irritating rash to a disabling condition that is difficult to treat. After initially being misdiagnosed as juvenile
arthritis, the disease was identified in 1975 in Lyme and South Lyme, Conn., and quickly spread to other parts of the world.
Scholl said several deer-eradication programs in Connecticut have been effective in reducing the number of local Lyme disease cases in the
past. In communities such as Mumford Cove, Conn., reported cases of Lyme disease fell drastically, from 30 to three over a six-year
period, after a large culling program — selected killing of surplus animal populations — reduced the deer community from 101.3 per square
mile to just 10.5, Scholl said. Howard Kilpatrick, a deer biologist who works for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said in
a press release that the Mumford Cove deer-eradication program has resulted in a reduction in the local tick population as well as in the risk
of contracting Lyme disease. Now, Scholl is using Mumford Cove’s success as a model as he advocates for a longer hunting season in
southern Connecticut. But despite the seemingly direct correlation Scholl draws between the deer population and the prevalence of Lyme
disease in Mumford Cove, some scientists said they are not convinced that increased deer hunting is the best method of combating the
disease. They said the result at Mumford Cove does not establish a definite correlation between hunting and Lyme disease. Targeting the
source of the disease — the ticks — rather than the carriers is the only way to truly decrease the risk of contracting Lyme disease, the
scientists said. “I think that only elimination or near elimination will have an effect on the population of ticks, something not likely to
happen, and certainly not by increasing the hunting season,” Epidemiology and Public Health professor Eugene Shapiro said in an e-mail.
Louis Magnarelli, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, said he agrees that a longer hunting season
would not actually yield results in practice, since deer populations would need to be drastically reduced before the state would begin to see a
decrease in incidences of Lyme disease. He also argued that it is not only deer that spread the disease, but also white-footed mice and other
rodents, so targeting the deer population exclusively would not eliminate the disease. “Current research at the Connecticut Agricultural
Experiment Station and other institutions is directed at reducing ticks in localized settings by other means, such as biological and chemical
control methods and habitat modification,” he said. Kirby Stafford, an entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station,
said using pesticides on deer to kill off the ticks is the most logical and effective means of targeting the disease.
While some hunting enthusiasts interviewed said they are excited about Scholl’s proposed hunting season, they said they are not entirely
convinced that it would work in practice. Thomas Remington, co-author of ‘The Legend of Grey Ghost and Other Tales from the Maine
Woods’ and various New England hunting blogs, said Scholl is overestimating the impact hunting will have on the overwhelming deer
population in Connecticut. “That’s the reduction of herd size to eight deer per square mile,” Remington said. Since 1992, Connecticut has
been the state with the largest number of reported cases of Lyme disease, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Legislators urged to extend deer-hunting season
Deer hunters save shrubs, help to feed the hungry.......................................................12/14/08
BY QUANNAH LEONARD
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
BEACON FALLS — Patrick Brennan noticed a difference after opening up his land to deer hunters — his plants are less
munched-on.
“We had a lot of deer,” said Brennan, who lives in New Canaan. “My wife said we have to do something.”
He and his wife, Jill, saw deer nibbling on plants along the front of their house, and wanted to keep their yard from being gnawed,
he said.
So the Brennans turned to Hunt To Feed, based in Beacon Falls, to help manage their deer problem. He said it’s a win for all
involved — except perhaps the deer.
Now Brennan’s yard stays intact, hunters can enjoy their sport and a portion of the deer harvest is donated to needy residents.
The Hunt To Feed program was created in 2006 by WhiteTail Solutions of Oxford, a deer management organization.
Through Hunt To Feed, a hunter licensed by the state can come on a person’s property at no cost in return for an agreement to
donate a portion of their deer harvest to two participating butchers Large Game Co. in Oxford and Latella and Sons in West
Haven.
Hunters tell the butchers the venison is for Hunt To Feed, and the program will pay for the deer to be processed, which runs
$50-$75, said Dan Beyer, a member of the organization’s board of directors and one of three owners for WhiteTail Solutions.
Once the butchers have ënough venison, they call the Connecticut Food Bank, which picks up the ground meat and distributes it
to nonprofit programs that feed needy residents across the state.
Beyer said the program, which organizers are trying to establish as a nonprofit, is growing.
In its first year, the organization donated about 700 pounds of ground venison to the food bank, he said.
In 2007, it donated more than 1,200 pounds of venison, and so far this year, it has more than 1,500 pounds to donate, he said.
And the season isn’t over yet. It started Sept. 15 and continues until the end of January.
Nancy Carrington, executive director of the Connecticut Food Bank, said the agency distributes the ground meat to nonprofit
programs that feed people in need, including some 650 soup kitchens, food pantries and emergency shelters. Thirteen
agencies receive the venison, she said.
She said one of the most sought-after items by the members is protein, and venison is lean and nutritious.
Under Hunt To Feed, most of the hunting takes place in Fairfield County and communities where the state has determined
there is an over-abundance of deer, Beyer said.
It works hand-in-hand with the state’s Deer Management Program, which provides incentives to increase the harvest of deer.
Hunt To Feed keeps a list of more than 100 hunters, Beyer said.
Landowners can contact the organization by visiting online at either www.hunttofeed.com, or www.findahunter.com.
Southbury resident John VanDerLaan, who has been a hunter for 25 years, said he found out about the program when he took
his deer to Large Game Co.
He has donated about six to eight deer over the past three years, he said.
VanDerLaan said that when he was younger, he used to donate under another program, but it cost the hunter to process the
meat, and the hunter had to deliver it to a shelter. Hunt To Feed takes care of the cost, and Connecticut Food Bank picks up
the meat.
“It makes it very, very easy for a hunter to donate his deer to the hungry,” VanDerLaan said.
BY QUANNAH LEONARD
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
BEACON FALLS — Patrick Brennan noticed a difference after opening up his land to deer hunters — his plants are less
munched-on.
“We had a lot of deer,” said Brennan, who lives in New Canaan. “My wife said we have to do something.”
He and his wife, Jill, saw deer nibbling on plants along the front of their house, and wanted to keep their yard from being gnawed,
he said.
So the Brennans turned to Hunt To Feed, based in Beacon Falls, to help manage their deer problem. He said it’s a win for all
involved — except perhaps the deer.
Now Brennan’s yard stays intact, hunters can enjoy their sport and a portion of the deer harvest is donated to needy residents.
The Hunt To Feed program was created in 2006 by WhiteTail Solutions of Oxford, a deer management organization.
Through Hunt To Feed, a hunter licensed by the state can come on a person’s property at no cost in return for an agreement to
donate a portion of their deer harvest to two participating butchers Large Game Co. in Oxford and Latella and Sons in West
Haven.
Hunters tell the butchers the venison is for Hunt To Feed, and the program will pay for the deer to be processed, which runs
$50-$75, said Dan Beyer, a member of the organization’s board of directors and one of three owners for WhiteTail Solutions.
Once the butchers have ënough venison, they call the Connecticut Food Bank, which picks up the ground meat and distributes it
to nonprofit programs that feed needy residents across the state.
Beyer said the program, which organizers are trying to establish as a nonprofit, is growing.
In its first year, the organization donated about 700 pounds of ground venison to the food bank, he said.
In 2007, it donated more than 1,200 pounds of venison, and so far this year, it has more than 1,500 pounds to donate, he said.
And the season isn’t over yet. It started Sept. 15 and continues until the end of January.
Nancy Carrington, executive director of the Connecticut Food Bank, said the agency distributes the ground meat to nonprofit
programs that feed people in need, including some 650 soup kitchens, food pantries and emergency shelters. Thirteen
agencies receive the venison, she said.
She said one of the most sought-after items by the members is protein, and venison is lean and nutritious.
Under Hunt To Feed, most of the hunting takes place in Fairfield County and communities where the state has determined
there is an over-abundance of deer, Beyer said.
It works hand-in-hand with the state’s Deer Management Program, which provides incentives to increase the harvest of deer.
Hunt To Feed keeps a list of more than 100 hunters, Beyer said.
Landowners can contact the organization by visiting online at either www.hunttofeed.com, or www.findahunter.com.
Southbury resident John VanDerLaan, who has been a hunter for 25 years, said he found out about the program when he took
his deer to Large Game Co.
He has donated about six to eight deer over the past three years, he said.
VanDerLaan said that when he was younger, he used to donate under another program, but it cost the hunter to process the
meat, and the hunter had to deliver it to a shelter. Hunt To Feed takes care of the cost, and Connecticut Food Bank picks up
the meat.
“It makes it very, very easy for a hunter to donate his deer to the hungry,” VanDerLaan said.
The Quiet Kill
WhiteTail Solutions thins the herd in the suburbs without waking up the neighborhood
Thursday, December 25, 2008
By Nick Keppler
Four deer were lazily hanging out in Joe Tucker's yard, right along his driveway. They did not gallop away when I pulled in. "That's part of the problem,"
Tucker's buddy Dan Beyer told me later. "They've lost their fear of man as a predator."
This is why WhiteTail Solutions exists. The company considers its employees "deer management consultants," and use bows and arrows to hunt their prey.
And this is why the company is most active in the affluent suburbs, areas the state Department of Environmental Protection has deemed troublesome for their
abundance of deer and lack of hunters. Ninety-nine percent of their hunts, says Tucker, who co-owns the company with his brother Chris and Beyer, occur in
Fairfield County.
Man isn't much of a predator here. Deer hunting "is not a way of life" along the Gold Coast, says Patricia Sesto, chair of the Fairfield County Municipal Deer
Management Alliance and director of Environmental Affairs for the Town of Wilton. "People haven't grown up with it and aren't educated about it. ... It's just not
our pastime."
Land here has been developed in a way — golf courses and wetlands separating office parks — that leaves open space where deer can eat well and breed
plentifully, says Howard Kilpatrick, the DEP's biologist in charge of deer management.
When the deer population increases, so do Lyme disease, car collisions and ecological damage.
The number of deer per square mile reaches 60 in some parts of Connecticut, says Kilpatrick. While he says it's difficult to say how many are "too many" for
this type of terrain, his educated guess is closer to 10 per square mile.
So, there's WhiteTail Solutions, a company headed by 40-year-old commercial well-driller Joe Tucker, who runs WhiteTail Solutions from his Oxford home.
And "company" may be the wrong word for it. Though it's a registered LLC, WhiteTail Solutions is more like 14 guys who love to hunt, who were raised hunting,
who "harvest" deer in towns where guys spend more time bagging Wall Street bucks than hoofed ones.
They do not make a profit for most of their jaunts.: They love to hunt. Most of their hunts are allowed by private-property owners, who were warned by the town
and the DEP about deer overpopulation. Sometimes town governments call them. Sometimes neighbors call.
The hunters are amiable, bearded, middle-aged men who choose their words carefully. They live up in places like Watertown, Terryville and Beacon Falls, but
will gladly handle the problem of deer overpopulation in suburbs like New Canaan, Ridgefield and Wilton.
You don't hear them. You rarely see them. Although they are all quick with a rifle, they use bows and arrows when they hunt in the wealthy suburbs because a
500-foot range is required for rifle-hunting.
And archery is efficient. Beyer speaks happily about fiberglass arrows and state-of-the-art bows that can launch an arrow at speeds of 300 feet per second.
But they also want to be sensitive to the people whose backyards they're hunting, says Tucker. Arrows are "quiet and travel the distance you'd need if you're
hunting the number of acres we need," says Tucker. Guns, he says, have a nasty cultural connotation, adding that, "Nobody ever died from an arrow on CSI:
Miami."
I went on a small hunt with Beyer and Tucker on a piece of privately owned property in Ridgefield one bright Saturday morning. We traveled down one of
Ridgefield's main arteries, made two turns, parked on the side of a residential yard and walked not over 100 feet into the woods. There sat a battery-powered,
time-set feeder that spread corn onto the ground in regular intervals. Above us was a tree stand — a sturdy, one-person platform attached to a tree for an
aerial view. This is how you hunt deer in the suburbs.
About five years ago, the group started in Ridgefield, the northernmost town on the Gold Coast. The posh town center is often compared to that goldest town
on the Gold Coast, New Canaan. Ridgefield also sits on the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, is sparsely populated (around 700 people per square mile)
and, says First Selectman Rudy Marconi, is "ranked at number-one, or close to the top of some surveys of deer-auto accidents."
In 2004, the town decided to form a "deer committee" to address the problem.
"The DEP had told us about the deer overpopulation," says Marconi, "and it was pretty obvious from looking around that we had a lot. We started to trace it to
other problems in town." Including Lyme disease.
The WhiteTail guys had been hunting in Ridgefield for years — and now the town government and residents have come to rely on them. They've since
branched out into Wilton, Danbury, Seymour, Newtown, New Canaan, Redding, and, more recently, Brookfield.
After I joined the WhiteTail men in the field, Beyer reminded me to check for ticks when I got home. They're careful. They are non-confrontational. They won't
hunt in a neighborhood if another hunter is already there.
And they're charitable. They've created a "Hunt to Feed" program that's gathered 1,500 pounds of meat this year, along with other hunters, and donated it to
the Connecticut Food Bank. Before that, they also provided meat to be served at fundraisers for Toys for Tots, the American Legion and other nonprofits.
The entirety of Fairfield County makes up Zone 11 of the DEP's Deer Management Zones. It and Zone 12, which stretches the rest of the coast from Milford to
Stonington, are the problem zones of the 12 deer zones the DEP carves the state into.
Hunter surveys and aerial expeditions have detected the popularly given figure of 60 deer per square mile. So the DEP adopted a few "liberalizations" of
hunting regulations to lower the deer count, says Dale May, director of the DEP's Wildlife Division.
The hunting season in most of the state runs Sept. 15 to Dec. 31, but extends until Jan. 31 in Zones 11 and 12. In these areas, you can use bait (like corn)
and can harvest an unlimited number of antlerless deer — or does and fawns — which are more important to increasing or maintaining a herd's number than a
buck. You can't do any of this in the other 10 zones, which, except for Zone 3 (Hartford and the surrounding area), are largely rural. The DEP is also
considering a "special crossbow season" for the two trouble zones.
"Deer have unlimited capacity to breed in these zones," says May. "They have no predators. Bobcats and coyotes are rare, and most of them could not take
down a full-grown deer. They may be able to get away with an injured one or a fawn, but if they can get a woodchuck or a possum or a housecat, they won't
even try for the deer. ... The other predators, such as wolves and bears, are gone, and aren't coming back."
Man is deer's biggest predator in this terrain, says May, and has been since the days of the Native Americans. But in the days of the financial sector commuter,
they seem to have stopped.
Take Wilton, for example, a town where income averages $141,000 and breadwinners mostly commute to Stamford or New York. Wilton has 71 square miles of
land and a comfortable density of 654 people per square mile. There are, according to Sesto, nearly 70 deer per square mile.
Lots of deer means auto wrecks. The DEP found more roadkill per square mile in Fairfield County, which includes the Merritt Parkway, routes 7 and 8 and
other brisk-but-scenic roadways, than any other part of the state.
The precise number: 1.32 dead deer per square mile, compared to the state average of 0.52.
There's also Lyme disease, one of many bacterial diseases spread by tick-carrying animals, like deer. Since 1996, 29,000 cases of Lyme disease have been
reported to the DEP.
Yet, Lyme is a relatively new disease. It was discovered in 1975 in Lyme, Connecticut, which sits toward the end of Zone 11.
Reliable diagnostics either haven't been developed or haven't been implemented, says Maggie Shaw, of the Newtown Lyme Disease Task Force. Shaw's entire
family has been fighting Lyme since 1992, and it's caused years of fatigue, illness and developmental damage for herself, her husband and their three children.
The point is: Lyme is new, mysterious, devastating and associated with deer.
So what are the solutions to these problems?
Controlled hunts, the DEP says. Devil's Den Nature Conservatory in Weston has been closed to the public on weekdays this fall to allow hunters to shoot deer.
Huntington State Park in Redding was opened for bow-hunting only, provided hunters stay away from one heavily people-populated area. Sesto has been
orchestrating controlled hunts in Wilton around the Rock Lake and City Lake reservoirs over the last six years. She thinks the hunts will harvest 80 to 100 deer
this year.
What's the solution when you don't have large state parks or protected reservoirs to provide a controlled hunt?
WhiteTail Solutions.
Or at least that's what the Selectmen Board of Brookfield, another 60-deer-per-square-mile town in Upper Fairfield County, decided. The town hired WhiteTail
hunters to patrol three town-owned pieces of land.
"They are there in their tree stands, shooting razor-sharp arrows directly down," says First Selectman Robert Silvaggi, who adds that the town isn't paying the
hunters. "The arrows travel only a few feet. They go right through the deer, and there's little chance of anyone getting hurt."
It wasn't accepted by the entire town. Silvaggi says that a town meeting last October discussing the hunt this fall revealed more people support it than are
against it, but "you are always going to have some people who want to save Bambi."
While Joe Tucker laments the decline of hunting in Connecticut, Priscilla Feral celebrates it.
"What happens when all these people die out?" asks the president of Darien-based Friends of Animals. "Haven't their children discovered video games and
better things to do than mutilate a deer?"
"Unequivocally opposed to hunting," Friends of Animals makes its presence known at municipal meetings where controlled hunts are discussed. They picketed
Wilton's first WhiteTail hunt and were involved in a battle over Bluff Point State Park in Groton, — a patch of land trapped between a busy Route 1 and the
Long Island Sound — where the DEP decides each year exactly how many deer will be killed there.
The larger problem, says Feral, are people.
"Deer don't cause global warming, deer don't pollute rivers. Compared to that, a little damage to some shrubbery is nothing."
She adds, "We've overpopulated and mismanaged this planet and we can't get indignant when some deer come into 'our' area."
As for the deer-to-vehicle collisions, "You'll notice they go up during hunting season when deer are running more from hunters," she says.
(Note: Hunting season does coincide with mating season, when deer activity is already greater.) As for Lyme disease? "It seems ridiculous to me that you are
going to get rid of this disease by eliminating one mammal."
Tucker wants nothing to do with people like Feral — no arguments, no debates, no encounters. WhiteTail isn't in the business of changing minds, he says.
"There are some people you are never going to convince and I'm OK with that," he says. "I'm a very choice kind of guy. If you don't want hunters around you or
your property, I respect that. I only want that you respect the rights of the owners who are OK with that."
When asked if he's ever had any encounters with the animal-rights crowd, Tucker, as always, is careful with his words, but his eventual answer is no.
"I try to avoid that confrontation before it even happens," he says. "It's a no-win sort of thing."
He does make a brief comment about the middle-of-the-road folks in suburbia. "You don't need Bambi. You don't need a dead deer to make people
uncomfortable," he says. "It's the camouflage and the trucks and the equipment. I get a lot of [landowners] who were uncomfortable having us come down at
first, and then they become OK with it and we wave to each other and sometimes they tell me [about their initial indecision]: 'I just wasn't used to it.'" ¦