Open Forum Draws One Attendee—

Selectmen Hear About USDA Deer Culling Program

By John Voket

Saying the town could “skip the game and get to the goal line right away,” resident David Shugarts told the Board of Selectmen on July 29 that a federally subsidized USDA program for reducing deer populations could be the answer to stemming Newtown’s incidents of Lyme disease.

“Opponents will keep telling you it’s the white-footed mouse, but it’s deer that are bringing in these diseases,” Mr Shugarts told First Selectman Joe Borst and Selectman Paul Mangiafico. His remarks came during a second open forum session at Newtown Senior Center, where residents were invited to ask questions or discuss any subject with Newtown’s top elected officials. 

Selectman Herb Rosenthal was not in attendance.

Besides two members of the press, who were the only people present for the first ten minutes of the session, Mr Shugarts was the only other attendee. This drew some pointed remarks from Mr Mangiafico, who observed that in his tenure as both a selectman and during a previous term on the school board, residents often complained that they could not get responses from town officials during public comment portions of town meetings.

And they certainly could not have a dialog, Mr Mangiafico added.

“Now when people complain that politicians never want to listen to them, or take the time to discuss their problems, in our defense we can bring up July 29,” the selectman said.

Mr Shugarts is currently the acting chair of a committee forming to study the effects of deer to human tick-borne disease issues. The Tick-Borne Disease and Action Task Force is in its final stages of being formalized by the board of selectmen, and Mr Mangiafico called for the seating of the panel to be fast-tracked, possibly within the next 60 days.

Mr Borst said that while initially, more than 20 Newtown residents expressed interest in serving on such a committee, after seeking written letters of interest he only identified about eight residents ready and willing to serve.

Culling Suggestion Premature?

Mr Shugarts began what was to be about a 30-minute discussion by orienting the selectmen on a strategic deer culling program maintained by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Compared to the cost for culling services from private vendors, including a Connecticut-based company called White Buffalo, Mr Shugarts said the USDA program is equally effective at about one-third the cost.

He said other Fairfield County towns that have recently contracted White Buffalo to eradicate or cull deer from the region’s rapidly escalating population have paid $600 per head on average, while the average cost per head for the USDA program is about $150.

Mr Mangiafico then put the brakes on, saying the committee would be charged with determining if Newtown has a deer problem, and that any discussion of going straight to a culling program might be premature.

“The committee is supposed to look at that objectively,” Mr Mangiafico said. Mr Shugarts replied that “dozens and dozens” of towns in the region have already seated similar committees, produced reports on deer overpopulation effects, and correlated their relation to public health and safety concerns.

While Mr Mangiafico maintained that a final decision cannot be made until the committee has heard all sides on the issue, in the end Mr Shugarts likened the probability of discovering a deer-public health and safety connection in Newtown to “finding out if water is wet.”

Mr Shugarts referenced the most recent Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection deer census reports from earlier this year that he said shows Newtown having the highest deer population in Fairfield County with 69 per square mile. He correlated that finding to another sobering statistic.

“Connecticut has experienced a 27 percent increase in Lyme disease in the past year. Twenty-seven percent,” he said. “The more time we waste, the more people are getting sick.”

Program Under Consideration

In March of this year the Township of Lower Merion in Montgomery County, Penn., published a Police Committee report detailing the costs and issues of a USDA program for deer culling in the community. That panel pointed to three concerns: deer-human contact and its resulting illness or injury; traffic collisions and the resulting injury or death due to deer; and the environmental destruction of public and private trees and shrubbery.

That community’s deer-related problems peaked in 2006 when Lower Merion saw what is described as nearly 200 “deer incidents,” including 70 crashes caused by deer vs vehicles. That same year saw the highest rate of Lyme disease diagnoses among its residents, with 46 new cases identified.

Lower Merion Township has a population of about 60,000 in an area of just under 24 square miles, nearly double Newtown’s population but living in less than half  Newtown’s nearly 60 square miles of space.

After an extensive study in 2008, the USDA found that Lower Merion had a deer population of 58 per square mile, when an appropriate level should be six to ten. The report classified the township with “extensive overpopulation” of deer.

The Police Committee report indicated that the USDA would employ trained, experienced sharpshooters using night vision optics, and noise suppressed rifles working at night in controlled baited areas between the months of December 2009 and April 2010.

The culling program would be supplemented by licensed bow hunters in season between September and January. The cost of producing the USDA survey and subsequent management plan was $8,300, and the total cost to remove 576 deer to bring the population to within the USDA range would total $125,500 including processing, or about $218 per head.

Mr Shugarts told the Newtown selectmen that in the case of most culling programs, the resulting deer are butchered and distributed to operations that feed or provide food for the needy.

Lower Merion Police Superintendent Michael McGrath told The Bee on July 30 that his community approved the second to last step in initiating the program this week, with the police committee’s unanimous endorsement of adopting the USDA culling program to begin this winter.