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A deer browses in a yard in Ottawa Hills. Deer control has been the subject of passionate debate for years.
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Village panel considering all options to control deer

THE BLADE

Village panel considering all options to control deer

Village of Ottawa Hills looks into culling, nonlethal methods

Reducing the deer population of the village of Ottawa Hills through culling or nonlethal methods is being considered to address increasing complaints from village residents, the head of the village’s Wildlife Management Task Force said at a recent meeting of the task force.

Corey Hupp, an Ottawa Hills Village councilman and chairman of the task force, said that while the task force would consider nonlethal methods of dealing with the deer situation, culling is an option.

RELATED STORY: Urban, suburban areas overrun by deer grasp for fix

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“The Department of Natural Resources said that culling is their number-one deer management tool,” he said. “It would be unrealistic for us not to include that or at least consider it as part of our plan.”

The task force held a meeting last Monday, the fourth public meeting of the task force, which was formed at the request of Mayor Kevin Gilmore to find possible solutions to controlling the village’s deer population.

“This is a very passionate issue,” Mr. Hupp said. “That’s why this committee is together. The only way we can lead is by getting feedback from our citizens. That’s the reason this group is together, because of citizen complaints.”

The committee will hold a town hall-style meeting on April 20 before finalizing recommendations that will go before Village Council with a target date of May 18.

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“The draft that the wildlife management program is working on now will include both lethal and nonlethal options for recommendations,” Mr. Hupp said. “I can’t tell you that we are leaning one way or another, but anything that we do will have to go along with education.”

The topic of deer culling has been an issue for Ottawa Hills in the recent past. In 2010, Ottawa Hills voters narrowly defeated a repeal of a 1940 ordinance banning the discharge of firearms in the village.

Village councilmen had voted in late 2009 to hire a firm that specializes in selective deer-killing to thin the deer population. Council voted 4-2 in favor of repealing the 1940 firearm ordinance to allow for the culling.

However, opponents gathered enough signatures to place the matter on the November, 2010, ballot.

Frequent complaints from residents have forced the village to reconsider how to deal with what many view as a large problem.

There are currently 76 deer in Ottawa Hills and Mr. Hupp said the recommended deer count to maintain a stable ecosystem is 15 to 20 per square mile.

“We put together a standards subcommittee and found that the standard should be between 15 and 20 and we heard that from the nature conservancy that that is a healthy amount of deer,” Mr. Hupp said. “That's what we want. We don't want to eradicate our deer. We want to have healthy deer.”

Ottawa Hills is a 2.5-square-mile village, so Mr. Hupp said “we’re almost twice the average that we should have.”

The task force’s goal is to consider all options to get to the targeted healthy amount of deer and encourage debate from the citizens of the village.

“I was happy to see that we have an active committee that can listen to both the pros and cons of the subject,” Ottawa Hills resident Bill Steele said after the fourth meeting. “I’d rather have a smaller healthy population of deer that people can still enjoy and watch out their back windows than what we have now which is about 75 deer, which is about 40 too many and they’re just causing all kinds of damage.”

Contact him at: bbuckey@theblade.com or 419-376-9414.

First Published March 23, 2015, 4:00 a.m.

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