HomeMy WebLinkAboutBrampton, H DEIS.pdf 131 Christopher Circle
Ithaca, NY 14850
December 15, 2010
Village of Cayuga Heights
836 Hanshaw Road
Ithaca, New York 14850
To: Mayor Kate Supron and the Village Board of Trustees
Comments on Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Deer Management Plan
I speak as a retired psychotherapist who is a Tompkins County native and who has
lived just over the border of Cayuga Heights in the Town of Ithaca for almost 50 years.
During my 26-year career in the mental health profession, I worked at the Tompkins
County Mental Health Clinic for about 5 years, at Family and Children's Service for
more than 5 years, and 6 years in the Ithaca City School System. Throughout my
clinical experience, including private practice, I have worked with many victims of
domestic violence. In the 1970's I co-founded Displaced Homemakers, now called The
Women's Opportunity Center, a social service organization created to provide
emotional and practical support and training to women left alone following divorce,
separation or widowhood. During a period of work in California,I supervised a
program on women and employment at Resources for Women. Throughout my career
I have had an interest in and focus on helping people overcome emotional damage
caused by exposure to different forms of violence.
As a lover of human beings, as well as other creatures of nature, I am speaking up to
encourage intelligent thought in the current struggle to live with white tailed deer in the
Cayuga Heights area. I and many others have come to meetings to share our thoughts
on this issue, where sensible and well-informed voices called for alternative manners of
reducing conflict between deer and humans.But the Cayuga Heights village board of
trustees has decided, to my knowledge, to kill the bulk of the deer herd—this without
any serious research into non-lethal options. Now, I have recently learned, it seems this
will be done in a thoroughly vicious manner described as "net and bolt"
killing. Plunging ahead with violence in defiance of both science and ethics appalls
me. In a setting filled with intelligent and well-educated people, there are apparently
some who value flowers and bushes untouched above beautiful sentient beings who
were, of course, here before us all.
I found in the village's Draft Environmental Impact Statement little discussion of the
significance of the impact the proposed killing program will have on the people of this
community. On page 5 it is stated, "While the culling of deer, as proposed by the Village,
may be experienced as a potential significant impact to the social conscience of a portion
of the VCH community, under the rules of the New York State Environmental Quality
Review Act, community controversy is not criteria for determining significance." I
agree that this killing program is going to impact the conscience of many people, not
just in Cayuga Heights, but in the entire Ithaca area, and perhaps beyond. But to
conclude that conscience is the same as controversy is incorrect. While this certainly is a
matter that should weigh upon our consciences, it is also a significant question of
mental health, on both a community level and individual level. The village board is
obligated to closely and objectively assess the human health implications of the
proposed plan.
As a mental health professional, I am deeply concerned about the impact of this killing
program on children. The lesson we teach them by carrying out mass killing of
innocent wild creatures in our backyards, particularly in the manner planned, is that
only human beings matter, that any creature who gets in our way can be struck down
without care. And that the suffering of the creatures of this earth doesn't count as much
as our often superficial wants and whims. Thus we teach them the wrong lesson for
living. It continues the myth that violence is the answer to problems, and it will
certainly cast a shadow on their still developing inner lives.
I am also concerned about both children and adults in our community who so
deeply enjoy connections of various sorts with the deer. Some folks love to take
beautiful pictures of them, others wait by windows for their daily visit, some have
given names to their four-legged neighbors and consider them family. The experience
of witnessing, or just knowing about, the wanton slaying of these defenseless animals,
will, in my professional opinion,bring about damaging trauma for many in the village
and the nearby municipalities that comprise the Ithaca community, where programs of
this sort do not reflect our community values. A woman who has been physically
abused may, for example, easily suffer renewed Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD)
symptoms upon exposure to this sort of violence, as may a child who has previously
suffered abuse at the hand of a parent, even those among us who are just a little more
empathic or who are experiencing a period of vulnerability, the same. Violence is not
forgotten in the heart or head, and under the right conditions, can leave a lasting mark
on any of us. I know that some people are so disturbed by just the thought of this
killing program that they are considering moving out of our community if it is
enacted. How can this not be considered significant by the trustees of Cayuga Heights?
I speak today not just as someone with professional expertise in the treatment of the
traumas caused by violence,but also a resident of a neighborhood close by Cayuga
Heights, where a small herd of deer roam freely during winter and summer. This plan
to use bait to lure deer to their fearful and painful death appalls and frightens
me. Many of the individual deer I see every day and recognize on sight will almost
certainly be drawn into Cayuga Heights and to their deaths. Each one is an important
part of our beautiful milieu, and most of us value them as such. How can I put it? If the
deer are taken from us in this cruel and thoughtless way, our world will darken and
lose much beauty and interest. We won't see tiny fawns gamboling on the lawn or
suckling their mothers. We won't be able to show our children and grandchildren a
part of the world that adds to their experience and wonderment.
Whether or not we endure the personal trauma of our neighborhood deer friends being
lured into Cayuga Heights and slaughtered, many others in our community certainly
will, and the lesson learned will damage children and adults throughout Ithaca for a
long time to come. The lesson? "If you don't like your neighbor, go straight to
violence. Killing is the answer to problems." What the Village trustees fail to
understand is when we do harm to others, we are planting the seeds of violence and
injustice for the future. For our own well being, we need a new answer.
ICJ 24a J3
Hazel Brill Brampton, Cornell AB '46, Smith MSW '49