Audubon Society Is opening their property to bow hunters. The reason for
the hunting is reduce the number of deer. The deer have over populated,
and have been destroying the habitat. Most other species have left the land
due to this problem. Friends of Animals have got their panties in a wad over
this and feel the Audubon society should use high fences and birth controle
instead of hunting them. Not only are the Friends of Animals outraged over
the hunting, but also the donation of the deer meat to the food banks.
Friends of Animals have offered to match the amount of donations by the
Audobon Society with vegetarian foods. Apparently these people have too
much money and too much time.
http://action.fund.org/action/index....ep=2&item=5094
http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermai...03/009620.html
Greenwich Post, Greenwich, CT
Nov. 6, 2003
By Ken Borsuk
Staff Reporter
A decision by the Greenwich Audubon Society to allow bowhunting of deer on their 285-acre sanctuary has angered animal rights activists, who claim that it is the most "cruel and inhumane" type of hunting.
The day the decision was announced a protest was held outside the Audubon Society by residents and animal rights activists, who said they were hoping to convince the society to explore alternatives. Priscilla Feral, the president of the Darien based organization Friends of Animals, said she was disgusted that Audubon would allow bowhunting, calling it, "a betrayal to the animals and the public that supported this non-profit organization."
"Why create a sanctuary that is supposed to be a refuge for nature and wildlife and have signs posted that there is no hunting and then throw the gates open to bowhunters under the guise of protecting vegetation and providing a cure all for problems in Greenwich due to human expansion and overcrowding?" Ms. Feral asked. "Obviously this is a morally corrupt idea to us and if Audubon really had a need to provide some kind of protection to certain plants and vegetation they could use any number of opportunities for repellents, enclosure fencing or permanent fencing around the perimeter."
Ms. Feral said that any garden supply store would sell repellents to put on plant life that are non lethal and simply discourage deer from eating plants. She claimed that any attempts to control the population of deer through hunting would just result in more of them. Ms. Feral said that any deer killed and dragged out would be replaced by deer migrating in and that any hunting impact would last only a season before the deer population rebounded because of spring and summer births.
"This is not population control," Mr. Feral said. "This is a hunting opportunity for the cronies of the Audubon society. It"s an opportunity for the people they hang with and for anyone who wants to shoot a buck and turn it into a trophy. The deer are habituated. They are used to the hikers and the people who have peacefully interacted with them up until now. The crime in this, I think, is that you have deer that do not fear people that occupy a sanctuary that"s supposed to be a refuge that are going to be subject to very horrendous hunting techniques."
Allowing bowhunting was just one of several options being considered by Audubon"s senior management. Thomas Baptist, the executive director and vice president of Audubon in Greenwich, said that it was a way for the society to fill its primary mission.
"Our primary concern is maintaining the health of the sanctuary itself," Mr. Baptist said. "Deer have increased, according to our study, to the point where they are devastating the biological integrity of the sanctuary by consuming vast quantities of plants in the understory. Audubon has documented the ecological change to this sanctuary and the complete extermination of a variety of plants and wildflowers and the impact on the birds and wildlife that depend upon ground cover to survive."
Mr. Baptist said that Audubon"s census revealed there were 60 deer on the property and that each deer consumes 2,000 pounds of plants each year. He said termed that to be "devastation" and said it was adversely affecting the biological health of the sanctuary. In the Audubon"s report options such as fencing and repellents, trapping and relocation and fertility control were discussed and considered as alternatives to hunting.
Mr. Baptist said that fencing the property would have been difficult because of the size of the property and because it was unclear how a fence like that could be erected and maintained in a way that kept deer out.
"Fencing really wouldn"t address the problem," Mr. Baptist said. "It would just send deer to neighboring properties."
When asked to respond to the charge that this decision was made in the interests of local hunters, Mr. Baptist dismissed the idea.
"That"s not even worth responding to," Mr. Baptist said. "It"s completely fabricated. Our number one concern is the health of the sanctuary."
The animal rights groups were tipped off about this by local resident Irene LoRusso, who heads up Mission Wolf in town. She alerted the groups about the bowhunting and stood outside with them at the protest.
"I just thought this idea was outrageous and the total opposite of what Audubon preaches," Ms. LoRusso said. "This is a sanctuary for all wildlife, not just what Audubon says should be here and shouldn"t be here. I was shocked that they did this. There are more humane ways of doing this. They could accomplish this through sterilization."
However, there were also Greenwich residents who supported the bowhunting. R. Tek Nickerson owns property adjacent to Audubon and his family has donated land to the society to build their sanctuary. Mr. Nickerson, who works as an environmental land use planner, said that there was a severe problem with the deer that had to be addressed.
"We have to have balance and I would like to remind everyone who does oppose the bow hunters that until we have a viable way of dealing with the deer that doesn"t require killing them with a bow and arrow, we"ve got to use a transition," Mr. Nickerson said. "Sterilization just isn"t viable yet. A fence is only going to direct the deer somewhere else if he doesn"t choose to just jump over the fence. Deer can jump quite high and they can become entangled in the fence and break a leg. Eventually I would like to see this go to a sterilization program. We"ve got to put the money into research."
Mr. Baptist also felt that sterilization wasn"t a realistic alternative yet.
"Sterilization is fraught with difficulties," Mr. Baptist said. "In order to effectively sterilize a doe, it needs to be inoculated twice and then once a year afterwards. As for relocating deer after inoculation, it"s problematic. Male sterilization is very intensive, expensive and problematic. It"s effectiveness is in question by scientists."
According to the report put together by the Audubon Society on managing the deer, controlled hunting worked when enacted in Yale Forest in 1984 and that forest regeneration has improved considerably since then. The report also cites data from the Bluff Point Coastal Reserve in Groton, where controlled hunts in 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2001 reduced the deer population from 284 to 19, which was termed to be a level compatible with ecological diversity.
"The bottom line remains that removal of animals from the population, specifically adult females, is the only effective way to impact deer numbers," the report stated. "Hunting is the most practical and economic way to accomplish that."
The practice of bow hunting was strongly condemned by Ms. Feral and others.
"When you shoot an animal with an arrow, that animal usually takes off and eventually bleeds to death, perhaps in some neighbor"s yard," Ms. Feral said. "This is a lousy idea. It"s the cruelest way to kill these deer and they shouldn"t be killed at all."
Later, in a press release condemning the decision, Michael Markarian, the president of the New York based Fund for Animals, said it was the most cruel and inhumane type of hunting Audubon could have chosen.
"Dozens of scientific studies indicate that archers hit and fail to retrieve more deer than they successfully drag from the woods," Mr. Markarian said. "That means for every animal killed outright, at least one animal is left wounded for suffer and die a slow, painful death from internal bleeding or infections."
Even though the decision was made to allow the bowhunting, Ms. Feral said she did not feel the efforts of the animal rights groups were in vain.
"The point of being a responsible citizen in society is to organize and resist lies, expose lies and tell the truth," Ms. Feral said. "We"re here to tell the truth and expose the lies. It"s a lie that deer should be hunted at the Audubon sanctuary."
Mr. Baptist said that the people opposed to the bowhunting were missing the bigger issue.
"This is not about deer hunting," Mr. Baptist said. "This is about protecting the biological integrity of one of the great open spaces of Greenwich."
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