Three months after Mt. Lebanon residents split over how to handle an exploding deer population, municipal commissioners are back in the deer management business, starting with a meeting of deer experts on Monday.
And while some residents questioned how many deer actually lived in Mt. Lebanon in March, there are a lot more deer now. Nearly all whitetail does at least 1 year old are impregnated each fall, and in the spring each bears one to three fawns. Sightings of small spotted deer have been reported all over town.
The public is invited to attend the commission’s work session at 6 p.m. Monday at Mt. Lebanon High School Fine Arts Theater. But they will not be permitted to speak. Or shout. Or chant and carry signs as did many during the protests prior to and during a controversial deer cull that was abruptly ended in March.
The commissioners attempted to fulfill their 2014 promise to reduce deer-vehicle collisions by 50 percent, in part by drastically reducing the deer population. A failed plan to bait, trap and kill deer in public parks divided the community.
“Commissioners ended up feeling regretful that things didn’t work out the way they hoped on deer management,” said Mt. Lebanon spokeswoman Susan Morgans. “They regretted they took so long to make a decision, and once they made the decision [to approve the cull], it was too late to work out.”
A few loose ends:
• In May, the Mt. Lebanon commission paid cull contractor Wildlife Specialists $3,000 — $500 for each of six deer killed in the 11 days of the aborted cull.
• There have been no arrests made in the vandalism and sabotage of contractor equipment, or for after-hours trespassing on park property during the culling program.
• Gardening expert Sandy Baker was paid $2,500 for several workshops and speaking engagements in April intended to help Mt. Lebanon residents deer-proof their gardens.
• Venison from deer killed during the cull was donated to Hunters Sharing the Harvest, a non-profit program that provides meat for food pantries and shelters.
• $1,270 donated on a crowd-funding website to Citizens Against the Deer Cull was spent on supplies, food, a phone bank party and other support for anti-cull volunteers.
• In April and May, 41 deer-related incidents were reported to Mt. Lebanon police.
At Monday’s meeting, commissioners plan to review deer management procedures in other Pittsburgh suburbs, discuss issues related to permitting and review the state Game Commission’s questions on sterilization and contraception options. Also, as a requirement of the special deer management permit granted to conduct the cull, commissioners have to plan and implement some form of archery hunt this year. In Allegheny County, archery deer season opens in September.
‘There are just too many’
The latest wrinkle in the deer debate is the appointment in April of Coleen Vuono as a Mt. Lebanon commissioner. A former commissioner and president, she filled the seat of Kristen Linfante, who resigned in February for health reasons. Having watched from the sidelines as the community exploded in March, Ms. Vuono says she’s been updated on the details and is ready to roll up her sleeves.
“I was so disappointed and surprised at how this was handled. I want to have my input,” she said. “I think, yes, there is a deer problem. The goal is to reduce the number of traffic accidents caused by deer by 50 percent. Sterilization and some other things that have been discussed will not cut the deer population now. … We have all the information we need. It seems to me there is only one alternative and it’s to cull the herd.”
Ms. Vuono says she loves animals, but she loves her town more. The number of deer in Mt. Lebanon, she said, is many times higher than when she served on council from 1988 to 1991.
“People on both sides had some of the facts, but not all of the facts,” she said. “This is how it is now. There are just too many.”
Jeannine Fleegle, a state Game Commission deer biologist invited to participate in Monday’s panel, said that inaccurate or misleading information that was spread prior to the cull complicated the commission’s job and exacerbated the community’s deer-related social problem. The science of urban deer management, she said, is clear.
“I am not opposed to fertility control as an option, but the fact is, it is not an effective tool to reduce the population now,” she said. “I wish we had that tool available, but study after study shows it’s not effective on open populations of deer.”
And anyway, she said, fertility control procedures are not as benign as some believe.
“People think that fertility control of animals will cause no harm and be a painless act. Not true,” she said. “It’s an invasive procedure. These deer need to be captured, handled, anesthetized. Stress can effect any animal, particularly a high-strung animal like a deer.”
The much discussed “compensatory reproduction” argument, which holds that animals in overpopulated ranges will collectively produce fewer young, doesn’t apply, said Ms. Fleegle.
“It is a real biological phenomenon, however, deer do not exhibit it,” she said. “These deer are already at the [population] max. They will come into estrus only once a year, there is a huge amount of food available and they’re not going to have fewer young. In that urban landscape, the does get plenty of nutrition to support lactation, and those fawns are getting plenty of nutrition from mom and the habitat around them.”
Ms. Fleegle said the Mt. Lebanon commission has asked the right questions of the Game Commission, other biologists, botanists and supporters of non-lethal deer reduction methods.
“They already know all the options that are available to them,” she said. “They are going to need a plan.”
Feeling that they’ve won Round 1, many Mt. Lebanon animal rights activists are “still up in arms and don’t want violence in their community,” said Leila Sleiman, one of the organizers of Citizens Against the Deer Cull.
She’s outraged, she said, that she and other cull opponents will not be permitted to speak at tomorrow’s meeting.
“I think the commission has their minds made up and they don’t care about other issues,” she said. “They are out of touch. They still have failed to prove that there’s a deer overpopulation problem.”
Another battle in ‘Nature Wars’
Jim Sterba says he’s seen it all before. Rancorous public meetings represented by at least 10 factions. Demands for a population count. Assurances that “too many” means deer are causing problems. Contradictory experts. Government dithering. Neighbor vs neighbor.
“And I’ve never even been to Mt. Lebanon,” said Mr. Sterba. A former New York Times and Wall Street Journal reporter, his coverage of many community deer conflicts led him to write “Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds,” published in 2013.
“These fights are far more widespread than most people imagine,” said Mr. Sterba, who lives in New York City. “They’re going on in literally hundreds — maybe thousands — of communities or townships or counties or state parks.”
In the late 1800s, when timbering and hunting were uncontrolled, there were very few deer in highly populated states, he said. Wildlife management agencies like the Game Commission were formed, and the habitat grew back in new configurations — lush suburban landscapes with no natural predators, no hunting and an unlimited supply of food. By the 1980s, urban deer populations had begun to grow out of control.
“Urbanites who didn’t grow up in rural areas generally don’t like killing the deer and are concerned about public safety with hunters out there,” he said. “Politicians, rather than upset voters on both sides, do nothing until the problem gets so out of hand, they’re forced to do something drastic.”
So, how does the story end?
“The same thing usually happens. The fights go on five or 10 years as they go through what will work and what won’t,” he said. “In most cases they fight on and on and on until they reach a tipping point, until they get past all the non-lethal means … and the people who don’t want to kill deer get an education in the consequences of a lack of civic responsibility. Finally, somebody makes a political decision and once they do, the kerfuffle dissipates fairly quickly.”
John Hayes: 412-263-1991 or jhayes@post-gazette.com.
First Published: June 21, 2015, 4:11 a.m.
