HomeMy WebLinkAboutShriffin, S DEIS1.pdf Nam
To: Mayor and Village Board of Cayuga Heights
From: Steven H. Shiffrin, Village Resident (102 Highgate Road)
Date: 12/13/2010
Re: Deer Management Plan Draft Environmental Impact Report
I appreciate the opportunity to submit comments on the Draft Environmental Impact
Statement. Despite our differences, I am grateful for your work, and I recognize that honest
and intelligent people can disagree about the deer issues facing the Village. Nonetheless, I
think the Statement has some serious weaknesses. I will focus on two: I do not think the
Statement shows that the recommended plan can obtain the needed political support over a
five year period and I do not believe that it offers a serious consideration of alternatives to its
plan for killing deer.
The Lack of Political Feasibility
The Statement concedes that the plan will need political support over a five year period. It
presumes that the plan has current support because the Board was elected against opposition
on the deer issue. This presumption is misplaced. The plan is not practical.
Although people vote for many reasons, it does seem likely that the deer issue decided the
election. The election was between those who wanted to leave deer alone and those who were
prepared to kill them. The issue of a compromise involving contraception or sterilization as
the exclusive method of reducing the deer population was not presented as an election
choice. It seems to me that the election shows that a strong majority of the village population
wants to do something to reduce the herd. It does not show that the population was in favor
of killing, or killing combined with sterilization, as opposed to sterilization and fencing.
Indeed,the Deer Committee endorsed the Cornell study in the late 1990's that 80% of
villagers wanted to reduce the herd, but those who favored killing the deer were in a minority
that did not exceed 30%. (Appendix D) The Statement has no data to support its view that the
majority favor killing of the deer(let alone killing deer with bolts). Of course,the Board has
1
December 13, 2010
the power to proceed without a majority in support of its actions, but without popular support
over a five year period,the plan will fail.
Whatever support the plan has now, there is reason to believe that support for it will decline
over the next five years. It appears that the primary support for the plan in terms of numbers
comes from those who are concerned about their gardens. This was the finding of the Deer
Committee and the impetus for its establishment. (See Appendix D). And the Statement is
not to the contrary. It does not point to lyme cases in the Village and it does not show that
traffic accidents have increased in the Village. As the tentative budget for the Plan discloses,
the cost for the proposal amounts to a 3.45% increase in the Village budget. It is reasonable
to assume that the Village budget will need to be further increased for other reasons (do
Village budgets ever go down?). If there is one thing we know about the American people(I
doubt the villagers are an exception),they want many things, but they do not want to pay for
them. When taxes go up, villagers will grumble and those who wanted to protect their
gardens on the cheap may reconsider in a difficult economy.
Under these circumstances, villagers will also examine the budget with some care. I expect
future political candidates will have a field day in attacking the Board on grounds of fiscal
irresponsibility. The plan calls for the expenditure of$150,000 each year for five years
($750,000) and an undisclosed amount thereafter. It has a goal of reaching a herd of 30 deer
for 1.8 square miles (even though its figures show that other governments have sought to
achieve 25 per square mile or what would be 45 for our community). The figure of 30 deer
for 1.8 square miles seems to be completely arbitrary. It has no scientific basis, and the
Statement does not even attempt to show that it has community support.
But, taking the Statement's figures,the Board would sterilize 30 deer at a cost of$1,100 per
deer(see Executive Summary) at a total cost of$33,000 and would kill the 170 other deer it
estimates to be in the herd at a cost of$500 per deer(see Executive Summary) at a total cost
of$85,000. This totals$118,000. Even assuming another 20 deer come into the community
to be killed($10,000),the total figure for killing and sterilization, does not exceed$128,000.
This leaves an expenditure of$622,000 to be explained. I have seen a document from the
Village that budgets $30,000 a year for two years for a deer management professional (I
assume this is for the sterilization period and that the Police Chief would protect public
safety when the killings begin).
This still leaves $562,000 to be explained. I do not think an expenditure of this character is
politically defensible, and no evidence in the Statement suggests otherwise. If the Board
plans to spend $562,000 on studies and unspecified contingencies, I would think any political
consultant would forecast that it should plan to lose a lot of political support.
2
December 13, 2010
Finally, when the killings begin,there are risks of deteriorating support. Killing in the
abstract is one thing; when people hear gruesome stories, many will lose their stomach for
the enterprise. This would be especially true if the Board adopted a net and bolt plan. A study
by Hastings-on Hudson concluded that no community has been able to sustain a net and bolt
program and that government has opted for a contraception program.
http://hastingsgov.org/Pages/HastingsNY_Issues/New%2OFolder/Deer%2OPresentation.pdf
The Board recognizes that its proposed plan cannot work without support for five years, yet
there is little evidence in the Statement that gives any grounds for believing that any present
support will be stable. Communities have started deer plans only to lose political traction. To
suppose that the Village will be politically stable around this plan without supporting
evidence is to engage in a kind of riverboat gamble: a gamble with the tax money of the
Village, a gamble that risks further community polarization and deterioration. There are
better alternatives.
Alternatives
New York law requires that an environmental impact statement"must analyze the significant
adverse impacts and evaluate all reasonable alternatives" [6 NYCRR 617.9(b)(1)]. I
maintain that the Statement substitutes conclusory assertions for evaluations. It does not meet
the legal requirement. The Statement dismisses contraception and/or sterilization as the
exclusive method of reducing the herd, but it lacks evidence to do so. It should be observed
that sterilization was tried in the Village before and the Statement recognizes that it reduced
the herd. Surgical sterilization was abandoned by the Village when Cornell was no longer
willing to make its facilities available. The Village Board at the time shifted to darts and
serum as a method of contraception,but the particular serum was ineffective. Apparently, the
Board has relied on Paul Curtis for the proposition that such methods are always ineffective.
But the views of Curtis are contested in the scientific literature and in local communities
which have examined the evidence. To hear Curtis is, of course, responsible. But to rely on
him without a serious consideration of the contesting evidence is excessively provincial (the
local expert is not always right) and is inadequate legal support. For example, Jay F.
Kirkpatrick, a Cornell Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the College of Veterinary
Medicine at Cornell University in 1971, is a nationally recognized expert in this field. He has
spent 38 years carrying out research on fertility control for wild horses and other wildlife
i The Deer Remediation document in Appendix E states that its conclusions are drawn largely from a paper by
Paul Curtis.As I suggest below,following a local expert who has taken one side in a national controversy
without examining or discussing the evidence on the other side is inadequate consideration of alternatives in
an Environmental Impact statement.
3
December 13, 2010
(including deer), for the purpose of developing non-lethal and humane methods of
controlling wildlife populations He is currently the Director of the Science and Conservation
Center at ZooMontana, in Billings,and has consulted with numerous communities including
the city of Pittsburgh. His conclusion is that contraception with darts and vaccine works. See
http://www.zoomontana.org/science-and-conservation-center/. To rely on Curtis without
considering the arguments of Kirkpatrick in an independent way is indefensible. Similarly,
the failure to take account of the attention paid to the issue by Hastings-on-Hudson which has
opted in favor of a contraception plan (at a cost they estimate at $400 per deer) for a deer
situation far more serious than in Cayuga Heights is further support for the conclusion that
the Statement does not discuss the contraceptive issue in the detail it would deserve if it were
adequately considering alternatives.
The Deer Remediation Statement(Appendix E) does mention that surgical sterilization could
take place in a mobile lab that can be shared with other communities (Cornell facilities are
not necessary),and the proposed plan does call for some sterilization which constitutes a
recognition that sterilization is feasible. The Statement objects to sterilization as an exclusive
remedy largely on the ground that it is too expensive. The support for this appears to be that
it costs $1,100 to sterilize and$500 to kill a deer. But this depends on the number of does
that need to be sterilized(the Statement has no evidence concerning the number of does in
the Village) and the Deer Committee concluded that only 70% of the does needed to be
sterilized.
Even more important, as the Deer Remediation Report observed, the cost figures assume the
absence of a volunteer graduate student or volunteer veterinarian (which the Deer
Remediation committee recognizes would dramatically reduce costs), and the cost figures do
not consider the possibility of private grants. Moreover,the Statement does not take into
account the transient character of male deer. Male deer may come in and out of the
community inflating the numbers that the Board would kill. Indeed,there is no showing that
a killing plan can work in a small area surrounded by a large and mobile population of deer.
In truth, the Board does not know if sterilization is more expensive.
The Board properly observes that killing deer is faster than relying on sterilization. It
suggests without evidence that herd reduction with sterilization would not take place for five
to six years, and its killing plan is apparently scheduled to begin in the third year. The
Statement does not specify the difference this time differential will make in terms of the
environment.
Finally,the Board may believe that the 60%reduction of the herd that occurred on Fire
Island and the 50% reduction of the herd anticipated by Hastings-on-Hudson is inadequate to
4
December 13, 2010
meet the 30 deer goal set by the Village board. But, as I suggested earlier,that goal has been
supported by arbitrary fiat in reckless disregard of the needs of an Environment Impact
Statement. The Statement needs to show that it needs to reduce the herd to that number with
appropriate argument that reduction to that number is necessary to avoid environmental
impacts that need to be remedied with a solution that is practical (I have argued that it is
politically impractical). It needs to make that showing in face of the fact that the deer herd
has been at levels far above 30 without arousing controversy. Only when the herd has risen to
a level five to six times the targeted goal has significant controversy been triggered. The
Statement does not come close to making its case in support of the 30 deer goal.
In the end, the Board does not seriously evaluate the alternatives of contraception and/or
sterilization, and it underestimates this: Unlike killing, contraception or sterilization will have
widespread support. It is a plan that can be sustained without intense opposition over a
significant period of time.
I will conclude with some remarks about fencing. I am pleased that the Statement endorses at
least a temporary change in the fencing ordinance. If vegetation is protected, deer will go
elsewhere. If it is not,deer will be attracted to the area. The Report, however, does not
seriously consider the combination of contraception or sterilization and relaxation of the
fencing ordinance as a suitable alternative to a killing program. It needs to do so both as a
matter of democratic process, wise policy and legal obligation.
5