Jo Egelhoff of foxpolitics.net forwarded this on. The city council of Rochester Hills, Michigan has called off a deer cull after dispatching sharpshooters in January. Instead, they are going to form a deer management advisory committee to investigate all options.
At least in Rochester Hills (unlike Oshkosh), officials were able to document a spike in deer/car accidents (23 percent increase between 2003 and 2007) before going ahead with sharpshooting. Still, the majority of citizens just did not buy the argument that nonlethal methods of deer management had been looked at seriously. On Monday night the Rochester Hills city council voted 4-3 to halt the cull. From the Detroit News story:
"In the more than 20 years I've been involved in Rochester Hills I have never seen anything as divisive as the council's approach to reducing the incident of car-deer crashes," said Councilman Jim Rosen, who voted in favor of the motion Monday night.
Halting the deer reduction activity in Oshkosh and creating a deer management committee would be a good idea. Such a committee could take a serious, in-depth look at management options. "Serious and in-depth" means more than "the DNR says we can't do it" or inviting in a Humane Society rep for sparsely attended workshops.
Congratulations to the Rochester Hills city council for being responsive to their citizens and showing some leadership. Be nice if that kind of thing caught on in government at all levels across the country.
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