From correspondent Tammy Grubb

The Carrboro aldermen voted last night to prohibit residents from feeding deer but postponed deciding whether bow hunters can cull local herds until early next year.

The feeding ban comes in response to concerns about the town’s growing deer population and the effect on landscaping, gardens and public safety. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission estimates Orange County has 30 to 44 deer per square mile.

The new ordinance prohibits residents from placing fruits, vegetables, salt and other materials outdoors on public or private property to feed or attract deer. The law does not apply to natural vegetation, crops or feeders used for domestic animals or livestock. The town will give violators 48 hours to remove illegal food or feeding devices before levying a $25 fine.

A group of hunters and residents also petitioned the board Tuesday to revisit its October 2010 decision to focus on public education about deer management and give new consideration to letting bow hunters harvest deer within town limits. If bow hunting is allowed, the board also would have to change a town ordinance that currently bans the discharge of any projectile, including arrows.

While some aldermen said they are open to hearing both sides of the issue, they also said they remain concerned about public safety and animal welfare. A public hearing on the issue could take place in January.

“I think this is one of the issues where we need to hear from more residents,” Mayor Mark Chilton said.

What do you think the town should do about the deer population? Tell us here or at editor@nando.com. Please state your name and town or township of residence if you'd like us to consider your comments for publication in the print newspaper.

The Carrboro aldermen will take stock tonight of the town’s options for dealing with an abundance of deer.
 
Some residents and the executive committee of the Orange County Democratic Party have asked the town to allow an Urban Archery Program early next year on public and owner-approved private lands. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission estimates there are 30 to 44 deer per square mile in Orange County; there are no individual statistics for Carrboro.
 
The aldermen will discuss a staff report that the town is densely populated and only a limited number of properties are large enough for safe bow hunting – typically two acres or more. Town laws also prohibit the discharge of any projectile, including arrows.
 
Staff will present an alternative ordinance, too, that would prohibit residents from feeding deer. Wildlife experts say feeding can concentrate more deer in one area, where diseases can spread more easily and reproduction is ideal. It also makes the deer less fearful of humans and more likely to wander close to homes or into traffic, experts say.
 
The aldermen will meet at 7:30 p.m. in the OWASA board room on Jones Ferry Road, since Town Hall is being used as an early voting site.

The N&O has a story today from medical writer Sarah Avery on the increasing threat of Lyme disease in North Carolina.

Victims of the disease and their advocates lined up last month, pleading with the Chapel Hill Town Council to do something about the growing deer population. Some believe deer carry the ticks that carry Lyme disease, an illness that can cause long-term fatigue, brain inflammation, muscle pain and facial paralysis.

"This is really serious stuff," said Dr. Patricia Clark, a board member with the Tick-Borne Infections Council of North Carolina. "Victims often say they wish they were dead."

The council asked town staff to try and estimate the deer population, assess how deer are damaging the town's plant life and suggest potential ways to reduce the population, including a possible urban bowhunt.

Hunting proponents cited damage to backyard gardens and traffic safety problems, but some of the most emotional testimony came from Lyme victims. Faye Orr, another TIC-NC board member, said she has suffered for years, was forced to retire early and lost two pets to Lyme disease.

"When they had typhoid in Rome, they had to kill the rats," said Dr. David Clemmons, a professor at UNC's medical school. "This is a serious public health problem."

But state public-health veterinarian Carl Williams said no studies have shown one way or the other whether reducing the deer population would reduce episodes of Lyme disease.

"In theory, it should work, but to the best of my knowledge, I haven't read that," he said.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has removed Chapel Hill from a list of urban archery programs in its annual Regulations Digest.

The town had applied by the commission's April 1 deadline to host an urban deer-hunt next January and February. But the Town Council hasn't yet decided whether to allow the hunt, so town staff requested removal from the list before the digest prints this summer. Removing the town from the digest woud not prevent the town from carring out the hunt early next year.

The council has also asked town staff to conduct a deer census, examine the health of
plant life in the town and propose options for reducing the deer
population - including contraception and bowhunting. The council will discuss the issue again in the next couple of months.

Killing animals doesn't sit well with a lot of people in Chapel Hill. Trouble is, humans are the only natural predators left to control the deer population.

Deer have multiplied 60-fold in the past century. There are more than 30 million in the U.S. and more than a million in North Carolina. People have driven out the wolves, leaving deer to feed on plant life with no carnivores to control their growth.

Duke Forest manager Judd Edeburn told the Chapel Hill Town Council last night that Duke has allowed hunters there in order to avoid "catastrophic" damage to floral diversity.
The council is considering a similar "cull" in some parts of Chapel Hill, and scores of residents flocked to Town Hall to voice their opinions.

Proponents talked about protecting their gardens and the threat of Lyme disease. Opponents talked about arrows flying and deer dying near their homes.

A UNC physician said deer ticks pose a serious public health risk; a state veterinarian said there was no scientific link between reducing the deer population and reducing Lyme disease.

The Town Council was left to sort it all out, and after three hours of testimony and debate, they decided they needed more information. They asked town staff to conduct a deer census, examine the health of plant life in the town and propose options for reducing the deer population -- including contraception and bowhunting.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt also asked for information on whether culling will have an effect lasting long enough to justify the conflict it would create in the community.

"I don't think getting rid of seven deer in Chapel Hill is worth the town dividing itself over this issue," he said.

The state Wildlife Resources Commission has rejected a Governors Club resident's request to suspend the bow and arrow hunt of deer that began Monday.

Skip Bollenbacher, a  UNC-Chapel Hill biology professor emeritus, asked the state to reconsider the hunt. He cited the division's Web site, which says "in most cases, when lots are small and houses are in close proximity to each other, the discharge of ay weapon (including bow and arrow) is dangerous and depradation permits will not be issued."

Some lots in Governors Club, a gated community south of Chapel Hill in Chatham County, are about a quarter-acre, according to residents.

Gordon Myers, executive director of the Wildlife Resources Commission, said the permit was appropriate.

"This is not a densely packed neighborhood," he said in an interview today. "We believe it can be administered safely."

Myers said the permit allows the taking of 65 deer after an agent verified plant damage. "The threshold is pretty low," Myers said. "You must demonstrate $50 worth of property damage."

He said the state does not determine if the hunting plan is safe or review the hunters. "It really is at the discretion of the individual hunter and the property owners association to determine whether it is safe to discharge the arrow," he said.

Also today, Governors Club refuted residents interviewed Monday who said they had no vote in the hunt. In a statement released by property manager Dennis McGarvey, the association says residents approved the bow hunt by a vote of 445 to 117 last fall, a 4-1 margin.

Opponents said today the vote was misleading. They say it asked about hunting on the periphery of the subdivision, not on individual lots as is now planned. They also say the responses reflected fewer than half the lots in the approximately 1,200 lot community.

McGarvey said information sent out with the ballots clearly said the measure would not preclude hunting on private property.

"The recommendation went out with the ballot and all owners voting therefore had access to it and should have known that the hunting could have taken place on private property,' he said. 

Myers predicts more disagreements like the one at Governors Club. "It is a polarizing issue," he said. 

The Governors Club, a gated community south of Chapel Hill Chatham County, begins a bow and arrow deer hunt today after its property owners association obtained a state permit to kill 65 antlerless deer. 

The hunt will take place on common property and about two dozen lots whose owners have given permission for hunting. A letter to homeowners says hunters will do their best to track and retrieve wounded deer but may need neighbors' permission to enter their property, including in the evening,  if a deer that has been shot by an arrow wanders off.  

A group of residents opposed to the hunt have formed a group called STAND. They say the property owners association board has refused to give them minutes of closed meetings at which the deer hunt was approved and also declined to provide a copy of the application for the state depredation permit.

"This isn't hunting because there's hunter who needs food or crops are being damaged," said Caroline Szymeczek, a molecular physiologist who has lived at Governors Club since 2005. "We're hunting because a small minority, a vocial minority, doesn't want to put up a fence or modify their plants" to be less attractive to deer.

In Chapel Hill, the Town Council recently told staff to prepare an application for the state's urban archery program, which would allow a bow and arrow hunt in selected neighborhoods in 2011. The council has not authorized the hunt yet, only the application, and plans a community forum later this year.      

The Chapel Hill Town Council voted to consider bowhunting deer in 2011.

The vote rejected a staff recommendation that urged the council to prepare information packets on deer-resistant landscaping and repellants.

The council had received multiple requests to reduce deer numbers. Residents of Mount Bolus had submitted a petition, asking for a hunt in their neighborhood.

The town’s sustainability committee had also asked the town to control deer numbers, possibly through a special urban archery program the state allows outside the regular hunting season.

“This is a health and safety issue,” said Lake Ellen Drive resident Mary Mendell. “This is not a question of my bulbs, my hostas or my azaleas.”

Town parks and recreation director Butch Kisiah said a hunt would be ineffective because deer culled from one area would be replaced by others moving in.

But council members said they needed to do something when, as member Ed Harrison said, “a native species goes berserk.”

We'll have more in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News. 

Town staff have rejected a proposed deer hunt inside town limits, saying too many people live too close together to take out enough deer.

The Chapel Hill Town Council will discuss the recommendation Monday night. It follows  three requests to cull herds that residents say destroy gardens, carry dangerous ticks and pose road hazards.

In November, the town’s own sustainability committee, a citizen advisory board, asked the town to join the state’s urban archery program. It sets up a special hunt outside normal hunting season for bowhunters to kill deer in designated areas. The earliest Chapel Hill could implement it would be  2011.

In a memo to the council, staff say a hunt would be safe in only limited areas. It would have to kill a large number of animals and be repeated, and some wounded animals would need to be tracked onto private property.

“We do not believe an urban hunt is a viable option for the town,” says the memo from Parks and Recreation Director Butch Kisiah, Police Chief Brian Curran, Public Works Director Lance Norris and Asisstant Parks and Recreation Director Bill Webster.

A couple of followup tidbits to a story I wrote last week about a regulated hunt to reduce the number of deer in Duke Forest.

First, I got a few comments from readers wondering how the Duke Forest folks count deer.

I asked Judson Edeburn, who manages Duke Forest. Here's his explanation:

"We got a permit to do a spotlight survey on our forest roads. We sampled the routes several times over a few weeks and averaged the results. Counted eyes, divided by 2 and extrapolated the sample."

Also - some of the debate related to the deer hunt has to do with the method - bow-and-arrow hunting. Some folks say it's dangerous, particularly if done in residential areas.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission keeps data on this sort of thing and issues annual reports.

You can read the latest report, from 2007-08, by clicking open the attachment below this blog post.

But I'll summarize: according to the report, there were three reports of non-fatal bow-and-arrow hunting accidents in 2007-08, and no fatal accidents. (Page 17 of the report; thanks to Carolyn Rickard with the commission for this info.)

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