Welcome

Welcome to the SolonDeer Comments Blog. As we hear interesting comments you will find them here. To have a comment considered for publication here, send it to SolonDeer at gmail dot com. The comment may be edited for clarity.

Here is an excellent letter to council, not only stating their non-lethal position, why lethal options don't work, but also offering concrete action items. Unfortunately several weeks later no one responded.

Letter to Solon City Council2

A handful of people's anxiety over wildlife is not Solon's problem

The Buck stops here, as does the Doe and the Fawn. Since 2004, White Buffalo has killed over 1,300 deer in Solon, regardless of age, gender or state of health.

For that service, the city paid out over $800,000 to White Buffalo and Trumbull Locker, as well as Police and Service Department overtime. The net results of the money spent was a brief reduction in deer/car accidents and a return of the deer population to its original numbers.

While allowing hunting with cross-bows in Solon was discussed for a time, Solon is not an appropriate venue for hunting. We are too densely populated, and there is serious doubt as to whether or not hunting, in a suburban setting, would contribute significantly to lowering the deer population. Dr. DeNicola of White Buffalo has even stated in an e-mail to the city that hunting, to reduce deer numbers, would be ineffective and provide nothing more than a recreational opportunity for hunters.

What is going on in Solon has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with salving the fears of a handful of people who cannot come to terms with the wildlife around them. A more practical and humane solution would be to learn to live with the deer, plant appropriate landscaping, drive slower, pay attention to what’s going on around you and hang up the phone!

Don’t allow a handful of people’s anxiety over wildlife to become Solon’s problem! Don’t allow ODNR’s management of our natural resources and subjective viewpoint to become Solon’s problem! We do not know as yet what the comprehensive deer management plan will entail, but we hope that it will take a more enlightened and humane approach, and not repeat past mistakes.

For more on the deer management issues here in Solon please visit solondeer.com.

Heinz Knall
Solon

Chagrin Solon Sun
http://www.cleveland.com/chagrinsolonsun/index.ssf/2011/04/a_handful_of_peoples_anxiety_o.html

When hunting doesn't work

then try more hunting...

That's what one Mentor resident seemed to say in response to a poaching rampage in Mentor.

Patch News article. SolonDeer post.

Larry Cardo
7:20pm on Friday, April 1, 2011 

It is about time that someone did something to reduce the number of deer. Our Government who is responsible for maintaining control is nonexistent! The large numbers of deer in Mentor are a joke. It is next to impossible to plant a tree in Mentor. The deer cause hundred of thousands of dollars in vehicle damage and are a deadly threat to motorcyclists. 

Nationwide deer injure thousands and kill about 150 each year. Why? Because the "Ohio division of Wildlife" wants to maintain large herds so hunters can shoot fish in a barrel.
All it takes to reduce the deer population is some guts and an extension of the hunting season. 

Larry Cardo
Mentor, OH

So this hunter is condoning poaching ("about time") and admits the ODOW attempts to keep the herd overpopulated to provide more deer for hunting ("recreational opportunity" according to Scott Peters of the ODOW at Solon Safety Committee Meeting).  He further states that the ODOW is the cause of DVAs.  If killing isn't working, more killing won't either!

Attention, residents: Solon will start deer culling again.

Solon will once again be rolling out the red carpet for their wildlife deer assassin, Anthony DeNicola, president of White Buffalo.

Here it is, year number 5, in the two-year deer management plan and Solon officials have deemed this ethical travesty a success.

I find it abhorrent that Solon officials define success as a high body count. I find it equally abhorrent that Solon has added annual deer slaughter to its list of the mundane winter schedule -i.e., snow plowing, salting streets, slaughtering deer, putting up Christmas lights, etc. with such thoughtlessness and ruthlessness. Who is representing the moral majority?

Since the decision makers rubber stamp the continued slaughter, without putting any additional measures in place, we are on the predicted treadmill of slaughter.

Why would Solon, in these economical times, be so willing to throw good money after bad? I think it's fair for residents to assume that this will be a perpetual expenditure that can't even be justified as paying for itself.

I'll remember this when I go to the voting polls next fall.

Carol Starcher
2008

Don't Mess with Deer

http://www.cleveland.com/forums/solon/index.ssf?artid=37219

4498.6. Behind the scenes at the secret deer planning workshop

by solonjoe3, 02/09/11 9:23 AM
Re: Friends, you gotta read. PB by butdad, 02/09/11 9:23 AM

Stanek: I’ve asked White Buffalo to come and present their comprehensive management plan for our review. But before I give them the floor, let me say a few things first. You guys are driving me crazy. Save the deer. Kill the deer. Captive bolts. Birth control. Catch and release. Crossbows. Introduce wolves. And now there is even talk of lassoing deer and raising them like livestock. We need you guys to shut up.

We had a perfectly good plan with the sharpshooters and you shut it down. Now it is going to cost us a lot more to start it back up. This is bad planning. Worse still, all the crazies are going to show up at meetings and start calling everybody Bambi killers. That is no way to run a city. We professionals are supposed to make all decisions in secret and you political guys are supposed to pass them on the consent agenda. What were you people thinking?

20-Year Integrated “Deer Management” Plan

Dear Editor: 

Regarding my “preliminary deer management plan” mentioned in your article titled [Foes cry, but city will seek culling bids] (Sept. 21, 2006),

I’m writing give a more complete picture of it. Culling deer as a means to reduce deer-vehicle accidents is turning neighbor against neighbor and Solon against itself. It is traumatizing children when they witness deer being killed before their eyes in the backyard next door. It is short term at best and makes little sense in the long run. 

As the contract shooter himself said, “Culling deer is like mowing lawn,” meaning that, due to the compensatory rebound effect of deer population, the killing has to be repeated year after year, at about $250,000 a year. Over 10 years, this would cost Solon $2.5 million, and over 20 years, $5 million, not counting inflation. And after all this expenditure, Solon would still be back at Square One, with nothing to show for it. 

All this lowers the deer-vehicle accident (DVA) rate by a mere 25%. On the other hand, if fencing is used, at about $6,000 per mile of fencing, a $250,000 upfront investment would endow Solon with 40 miles of deer-proof fencing, lowering the DVAs to near zero. The life expectancy of a woven wire and/or high tensile wire fence is about 25 years. It is a one-time expense that can solve the DVA problem for over 20 years in one go, with minimal maintenance. 

Other than along high-DVA roadways, the fencing could also skirt the rear of the deer-affected properties, thus keeping deer out of gardens. In addition, there is a full range of other deer repellents (chemical, acoustic, visual and biological). 

In addition to fencing, Strieter Lights have been proven effective in numerous other places (e.g. 40,000 installed since 1980 in British Columbia). The deer will find their own population equilibrium behind the fence by birth-rate adjustment and emigration. 

Most people in Solon or elsewhere do not want deer killed unnecessarily, especially by inhumane means. It is physically impossible for any shooter to make good the one-bullet-in-the-brain-per-deer promise. Many deer have been observed to be body-shot, and shot multiple times. 

Finally, the safety factor. With shooting occurring in over 70 kill-sites within city limits, often within yards of a neighbor’s house, accidents can happen. With all the available alternatives that are safer and less expensive, is Solon City Council willing to accept the responsibility for someone accidentally shot or, God forbid, killed? 

As they are well aware from DVAs, accidents do happen. 

Anthony Marr, founder Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) 

4118 West 11th Ave., 

Vancouver, BC, Canada V6R 2L6 

www.HOPE-CARE.org