Kent City Council’s public safety committee on Nov. 4 unanimously endorsed a three-part proposal to manage — that is, reduce — the city’s deer population.
First on the rollout is educating the public about the unintended consequences of feeding deer. This, city Service Director Melanie Baker said, can be done with posts on the city’s website and social media.
A deer survey, which is not a census but provides a baseline number of the resident population, would follow. This will allow Geoffrey Westerfield, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s assistant wildlife supervisor who is working with city officials, to determine how many deer need to be culled in whatever time period council chooses.
Third, and not this year, the city will work with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to implement an urban archery/targeted sharpshooter program.
“Deer management programs are not ‘deer elimination’ programs,” Westerfield told The Portager in a Nov. 4 email. “By managing the deer population in the city, the goal is to provide a deer population that allows for opportunities for residents and visitors to view, photograph, and, if included, hunt while also addressing conflicts to minimize those conflicts within the city.”
Urban archery
Westerfield recommended that Kent start with a zero-cost archery hunting program, letting hunters take care of removing and utilizing the deer themselves. Less effective than targeted removal, an urban archery program would involve residents applying for permission “to hunt any property whether that be residential, commercial, industrial, or otherwise,” Westerfield wrote in his email.
The application should require the hunter to specify what properties or contiguous properties the hunter wishes to occupy and to obtain prior written permission from the property owner(s).
Before any application is approved, a city official, usually someone the chief of police designates as competent to conduct such assessments, should conduct an on-site assessment, Westerfield wrote. No application should be approved unless the city is comfortable that hunting on the proposed site(s) can be done safely.
“This application process also provides a mechanism for the city to vet the hunter and as determined may deny hunters that they feel will not hunt in a safe manner, i.e. prior convictions, prior program violations, etc.," he wrote. “I also recommend that any hunter on an application attest that they have taken an approved hunter education course or other similar equivalent training.”
State laws would have to be followed, and hunters could only pull their bows during archery season, roughly late September to early February, Baker told council members.
Targeted deer removal
Sometimes called sharpshooting programs, targeted deer removal would likely involve Kent city officials submitting a request to ODNR with how many deer they would like to cull that fall and winter, along with data the city has collected to support that number, Westerfield told The Portager.
He stated that he and city officials would work to agree on the number of deer to be culled, and he would issue the required permit.
Contracts would be offered to designated sharpshooters, not “civilians,” who would work in January, February and March, at night, in public parks, Hook said. Signs would be posted in advance to warn residents to avoid the area.
The sharpshooters would use suppressed long rifles (specially designed to minimize sound). Where the sharpshooters would work would depend on where archers are not active or are not “minimizing conflict situations,” Westerfield wrote in his Nov. 4 email.
Once the city is done with a season’s deer management, it would have to submit a report specifying “what was culled,” Westerfield stated.
Council Member Chris Hook dismissed the likelihood of stray bullets flying about, saying that a decade-long ODNR survey “found basically no accidents.”
Since most sharpshooting programs start in October and end at the end of March, time is short to set one up this year. Shooting for next fall would be a better idea, Westerfield said.
Bang for the buck
The city could make a small amount of money by charging for urban archery permits, but a targeted removal program could cost $400-$700 per deer, Westerfield said.
He also floated the idea of combining a lethal management program — urban archery or targeted removal — with surgical sterilization. At several thousand dollars per doe, though, council rejected that option.
While a targeted removal program will, over time, reduce Kent’s deer population to what Westerfield termed "a tolerable level,” he also cautioned council members that they will have to decide how much they want to invest on an ongoing basis.
That’s because council, and residents, need to understand that no lethal management program would be a “one and done,” Baker said. Managing the city’s deer population is a long-term commitment that, if abandoned, will simply see the does, fawns and bucks return in ever-increasing numbers, she warned.
The city will gauge the effectiveness of its deer management program by tracking the number of vehicle crashes, how often city safety forces are called to euthanize a wounded deer, and how many deer the city’s trash company has had to collect and remove, Baker said.
Council will consider the proposal when it meets on Nov. 18.
Feeding feral cats
Amid backlash from area residents, Kent City Council met in special session Nov. 4 to amend its recent “Feeding Wild Animals and Fowl” ordinance.
The Oct. 21 local law had banned residents from feeding deer, geese, ducks, raccoons, skunks, rodents, chipmunks, squirrels, feral cats “or other wild animals or wildlife.” With its tweak, the ordinance now exempts feral cats.
Though it is now legal to feed feral cats, there are limits. If someone is doing so in such a way that unwanted rodents such as skunks are attracted, the city’s nuisance ordinance could be invoked, city Law Director Hope Jones said.
Additional exemptions
The ordinance does not apply to animals owned by a person or to songbirds fed from a sanitary bird feeder “so long as doing so does not create a nuisance.” That, former Kent resident Holly Schweitzer said, creates instant logistical questions.
“You can keep splitting hairs with this, so technically, if anyone is feeding squirrels, they're violating it. But how do you not feed squirrels if you have a bird feeder out?” she asked.
Intent is key. Council’s aim, Hook said, is to stop people from intentionally feeding wildlife.
“Do you intend to feed the deer, or are you intending to feed songbirds? You putting out birdseed for birds is not feeding the deer. It may have the inadvertent consequence, in which case, the city has to be asking itself — and we are — what can we do about deer population?” he said.
Also exempted are people growing flower and food gardens, landscape plantings and people who have set out decorations such as gourds, pumpkins “and other edible items,” so long as they are placed on the front porch or stoop of the residence.
Enforcement
How enforcement would work is its own question. Hook told The Portager that “anyone with eyes” could report a Kent resident for violating the new law, but noted that the feeding prohibition is rooted in residents’ complaints about their neighbors.
“I would hope this does not provide an incentive for neighbors to get other neighbors in trouble,” he said. “If we have, at the end of next year, a one-year period, if we have 50 complaints, or if we have 10 complaints that we feel are really just fueled by resentment, I'd like to know that, and I'd like to ask the police that,” he said.
Armed with hard data, Hook said council could determine if the ordinance is stopping people from feeding wildlife or it is primarily “creating rifts between neighbors.” If the latter, it should be repealed, he said.
Doing it right
The nonprofit Institute for Environmental Research and Education notes that feeding feral cats can be beneficial if done responsibly as part of a trap-neuter-release (TNR) program, but also carries potential risks if undertaken without proper planning and long-term commitment.
People who want to responsibly feed feral cats must use humane traps to capture them, take them to a veterinarian for sterilization and vaccinate the cats against rabies and other common diseases, the website states.
The vet will “tip” the cat’s ear, easily identifying it as one that has been sterilized. The person should return the cat to its original colony location, maintain designated feeding stations there, regularly monitor the cats’ health and behavior and address any new cats that show up, the website states.
Without a consistent TNR plan in place, providing food can increase local cat populations, which, even when fed, prey on birds, rodents and other small animals. Leaving food out all day instead of removing it promptly after feeding time is over attracts racoons, skunks and other rodents. Insufficient cleaning of the yard and feeding area also attracts pests, IERE cautions.
It also warns that high concentrations of cats in feeding areas can increase the risk of disease transmission (rabies and parasites), both among cats and potentially to humans. And feeding feral cats can also lead to disputes with neighbors who do not welcome property damage, noise and odors.
Hook agrees that TNR, if done responsibly, can be effective.
“I think people who are doing TNR, at least in the number of emails we've gotten, I think they're trying to do it responsibly. They may need some additional resources and help. So maybe it's having them sign on to a statement of principles and then kind of affirming that they've met the full comprehensive list of what they should be doing, and get them to sign on to it. That would then sort of permit them to do this,” he said.
Chalan Lowry, executive director of the Portage Animal Protective League, said her organization views TNR and the feeding of community cats as an important part of managing cat overpopulation.
“When communities place feeding bans on cats, it generally makes the problem worse,” she said. “Cats starve and wander looking for food. They get into trash and they fight for territory. Wandering means some will be run over or hurt by fighting, many times leaving behind kittens that have no parents.”
The APL sees hundreds of sick, injured and abused kittens and cats that would never have been rescued or sterilized if someone hadn’t been feeding them, she said.