Fayetteville — The Fayetteville bait-and-cull deer management plan underwent a dramatic change this week after the village board approved the use of federally contracted sharpshooters rather than local volunteer bowhunters to eliminate village deer and also contracted with an aviation company to conduct flyovers of the village to observe deer population density.
The altered program — which will also cost more money — was adopted on the basis that it will be professionally undertaken, more effective and will improve overall accountability of the program, according to both the mayor and the village deer committee liaison.
“It’s basically the same program that we had before. We’re just not using a bow and arrow; we’re using a silenced rifle. I think the deer committee felt strongly about it is since it’s [deer management] such an unknown process, their concern was burning volunteers out and not getting the areas baited properly and having someone oversee it,” said Mayor Mark Olson.
At the Monday, Jan. 11 meeting of the village board, Trustee Christopher Randall, liaison to the deer committee, presented a contract with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Wildlife Services to bait-and-cull white tailed deer through the use of skilled sharpshooters with suppressed rifles. This contract presented a significant change from the original vision of the village’s deer management plan which would use volunteer bowhunters.
According to Olson, the sharpshooters’ approach would work the same as the originally planned bowhunting program. The baiting and culling of deer would occur during a period of up to eight days on four different deer management areas from elevated stands, which will be on public property. The village has opted to have the USDA come in for up to eight different hunts, but not all days will have to be utilized if it is not needed.
continued — Olson said the deer committee believed contracting with the USDA was the best option for the village for several reasons: the sharpshooters are skilled with shooting the deer safely and have criteria in place to ensure uniformity; the package with the USDA includes the feeding, shooting and removal of deer so the village would not have to rely on volunteers and municipal workers to do this; the possibility of volunteers being overworked and dropping out is gone; rifles would be more successful in killing the deer than a bow and arrow; and there isn’t a concern of wounded deer walking around the village.
“It gave us accountability because if something goes wrong, we’re hiring the USDA to do this program for us. We can go back and say, ‘We’re not happy’ or ‘Something went wrong,’ and we have somebody accountable to make corrections,” said Olson. “That is another thing I think the deer committee liked.”
Randall said the deer committee decided to contract with the USDA because of its success in the past with deer management programs similar to Fayetteville’s in areas on Long Island. Although there is no set date for the program to begin, the committee is one step closer and will hopefully know more over the next few weeks, he said.
“They have a good record of being successful.” said Randall. “We won’t have to rely on volunteers to have a successful program.”
The program with the USDA will cost about $16,000, but the village hopes to be awarded a $20,000 grant from the Onondaga County Legislature funded through their recently approved deer management program, Olson said. The original volunteer bowhunting program would have cost around $5,000 to complete, Olson said, but he believes the sharpshooter alternative will be worth it in the long run.
“They’re [the USDA] going to be able to do a lot more in terms of baiting and culling and are very knowledgeable on the subject,” said Olson.
continued — Additionally, the village voted to spend up to $5,000 to contract with Davis Aviation to conduct a flyover of the village to get a better understanding of the population density of white-tailed deer in the area. Olson said he hopes this will happen in the next few weeks so the bait-and-cull program can begin soon after.
In addition to this bait-and-cull sharpshooter program, the deer committee is requesting the village set aside $21,000 for community outreach and education as it relates to deer management and Lyme disease, which they are also hoping to fund through the county as well but will include in next year’s budget if needed, Olson said, and will determine it as village budgets are put together in March.
“You can do everything that we’re going to do and it’s still not enough so we need to go to that last step,” he said about community outreach.
