Oregon town scratching its head over how to solve its deer overpopulation problem.

See if you can figure out what phrase is absent from this article on one Oregon town’s deer problem:

A town in southern Oregon will hold a public meeting to discuss how to deal with droves of fearless deer that wander the streets, occasionally acting aggressively toward residents, state wildlife officials said on Tuesday.

The “Deer Summit 2015” will be chaired on Wednesday by Ashland Mayor John Stromberg as part of efforts to address deer that have stalked people, pawed at them with their hooves and even stomped on small dogs.

“The deer have no fear of humans,” said Mark Vargas, District Wildlife Biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Yeah.  Yeah, technically they’re admitting that shooting the deer would be an option, but they’d need to hunt, wow, forty or fifty deer a year to keep the population under control. Can’t have that, apparently.  Of course, let the right people know in the Oregon hunting community (yes, Oregon has quite a lot of people looking for deer to hunt) and the underlying problem might solve itself…

Via Instapundit.

 

9 thoughts on “Oregon town scratching its head over how to solve its deer overpopulation problem.”

  1. Somehow, I don’t think a community in Oregon, that has been feeding the local deer for decades, is suddenly going to going to start hunting them. Of course, if humans don’t act as apex predators, something else will eventually move in. My guess? Werewolves.

  2. i can’t even imagine that they’d *MURDER DEER*. clearly the only solution is for the people to move away. a fence would be too…. icky and Republican. bringing in a predator or three would be too dangerous. they’ll decide to do – nothing. just live with it.

  3. Well, it’s less simple than that. You can’t have random hunters shooting at deer (there’s always more shooting AT deer than shooting deer) in populated suburban areas. You need to make sure you’re dealing with some above average shooters.

    1. Except these deer are unafraid of humans. It should be possible to get much closer to them than in normal hunting. Or open it up to arrow hunters. Or kill the deer near, but outside the area of human habitation.

      Donate the meat to a food bank or homeless shelter or something, or have a fundraiser where the meat is served.

      There are reasonable solutions, I’m sure. but they won’t be used, and someone will get in a car wreck and die because of it.

    2. I believe these types of depredidation hunts are usually archery only. Add in a bit of elevation, and risk is minimal. Worst case, someone’s out a sprinkler head.

  4. Heh, I love how sympathetic the readers here are to this particular problem 😀 The town now get’s to choose it’s dinner menu: venison (with a heaping helping of crow on the side) or karma…

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