Long awaited Deer Management Plan

The Administration promised a "Comprehensive Deer Management Plan" in May.  Its May and we saw the plan.  Its unimpressive, especially when you consider that the only thing unique about it is a few graphs.

Councilman Kraus touched a nerve when he called Stanek on the fact that it seems word for word the same as the "Granville Plan", a small rural community nothing like Solon.  When challenged if comparing their needs to ours is "Apples to Apples", Stanek bristled stating its "Apples to Apples to Apples to Apples".

The plan predictably mentioned everything, but said nothing.  It mentions many non-lethal options, then promptly dismisses them as "ineffective".  They did say they'd "continue to maintain" the Strieter Lites which inexplicably have 500 ft gaps to reduce their effectiveness.

The one item they definitely wanted removed though is the "deer park" idea, it is number "5 Supplemental Feedings" on page 9 of the draft plan. The ODOW would not issue a nuisance permit to allow killing deer to a city who was feeding deer.  This is a deal breaker for the city, they won't do something that will prevent lethal options.

In the lethal department, everything was on the table, Captive Bolt,  Bow Hunting, and Sharpshooting,  A question was raised about lethal options cheaper than Sharpshooting, one would think this would have been done, but Stanek said he'd look into it.

Captive Bolt, or as they refer to it, "Traps and Euthanasia", is among the cruelest methods, despite its nice name. The deer is caught in a trap, struggles to get free and then is shot with a bolt in the head.  The plan mentions that our Animal Warden could do this, he runs a side business in Pepperpike doing it.

Bow Hunting was raised again and it appears the same draft plan was added to the end of this new plan.  Our former police chief and our former deer sharpshooter (White Buffalo) both criticized this option. Russo said it won't be people "running around with bows and arrows", actually crossbows are more deadly.  It was also implied that large areas would be used, but Stanek said that was unnecessary when he discussed this a few months ago.

The implication was that this deadly activity would be on large remote lands.  The last program had nearly 70 kill sites, one may be near you!

The city's target deer population is 206-309, a new all time low that will require killing over 700 deer the first year,

The city mentioned other local communities with deer killing plans including ---


Deer Management Plan 1105a

A copy of the plan is on Solon's web site here.  The meeting video is here, Deer Mgt starts at 28 min in.  The issue is covered  as Deer Management under the Residents tab here.

The Solon Patch, made live comments here, you can follow the SolonPatch here, and published a breaking news story : Deer Plan Provides Lethal Options, But Decision Rests With City Council.


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