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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmitted at 10-28-10 SEQR hearing.pdfThe  SEQR  process  was  created  with  the  intent  to  facilitate  informed  decision   making,  and  the  clear  requirement  that  decision  makers  take  a  “hard  look”  at   alternatives  with  less  environmental  impact  than  the  proposed  plan  of  action.  This   requires  access  to  qualified  experts  who  can  be  trusted  to  supply  accurate   information  about  complex  issues.  When  information  offered  by  experts  is   misleading  or  inaccurate,  the  effect  in  the  integrity  of  the  decision-­‐making  process   and  especially  the  environmental  review  process  can  be  devastating.     As  documented  in  video  record,  on  November  20,  2008,  Dr.  Paul  Curtis,  a  professor   with  Cornell  University’s  Natural  Resources  Department,  made  a  presentation  at  a   public  meeting  of  the  Cayuga  Heights  Deer  Remediation  Advisory  Committee   (DRAC).  During  this  presentation  he  discussed  his  previous  involvement  in  a  deer   population  reduction  program  in  Cayuga  Heights  and  offered  his  analysis  of  various   options  for  addressing  the  Cayuga  Heights  trustees’  desire  to  reduce  the  current   population  of  deer  in  Cayuga  Heights.  During  this  presentation,  which  included   projection  of  slides  and  photos,  Dr.  Curtis  also  answered  questions  from  trustees,   members  of  the  DRAC,  and  members  of  the  public.         At  the  time  of  Dr.  Curtis’s  presentation,  members  of  the  DRAC  were  comparing   several  potential  methods  of  reducing  the  deer  population  in  Cayuga  Heights,   including  sterilization,  immunocontraception,  and  killing.  It  was  during  his   comments  on  the  costs  and  efficacy  of  immunocontraception  methods  used   successfully  for  two  large  scale  management  oriented  deer  contracepive  projects,    that  Dr.  Curtis  made  numerous  statements  whose  accuracy  has  come  under   question.  The  numerous  inaccuracies  in  Dr.  Curtis’s  presentation  had  the  cumulative   effect  of  making  it  appear  that  the  immunocontraception  methods  described  for   these  two  projects  were  grossly  more  expensive  and  grossly  less  effective  than  they   have  been  documented  to  be  in  peer-­‐reviewed  publications  that  are  quite  well-­‐ known  in  the  wildlife  management  field.  These  inaccuracies  take  on  real  significance   in  the  context  of  Dr.  Curtis’s  role  as  the  principle  scientific  expert  consulted  by  the   trustees,  and  the  central  role  played  by  Dr.  Curtis’s  theories  in  the  development  of   the  trustee’s  proposed  plan.       In  response  to  Dr.  Curtis's  remarks  at  this  November  20,  2008  presentation,  we   have  reviewed  the  published  literature  and  have  sent  Dr.  Curtis's  remarks  to  Dr.  Jay   Kirkpatrick,  one  of  the  scientists  who  had  significant  involvement  with  both  of  the   above  mentioned  deer  contraceptive  projects.    We  requested  that  Dr.  Kirkpatrick   respond  to  each  remark.    With  some  reluctance  he  agreed  to  do  this  with  the   understanding  that  he  is  not  advocating  any  form  of  management  at  Cayuga  Heights.    As  a  condition  for  responding  to  these  remarks,  he  also  made  it  perfectly  clear  that,   while  he  has  no  interest  in  the  Cayuga  Heights  issues,  he  does  have  an  interest  in   making  clear  that  deer  contraception  has  been  successful  and  that  the  real  issues   are  social,  cultural,  economic  and  political,  but  not  scientific.    We  chose  Dr.   Kirkpatrick  from  among  several  scientists  who  could  have  done  this  review  because   of  his  extensive  experience  with  wildlife  contraception  over  a  40  year  period.         If the scientific expert upon whose research, consultation and advice the trustees based their plan presented information this inaccurate about an alternative approach with a lower cost and lower environmental impact than the one the trustees adopted with Dr Curtis’s advice, and if Cornell research programs connected to Dr. Curtis are slated to receive over $270,000 dollars of funding from the Village of Cayuga Heights under the plan he helped develop, are the trustees not obligated to reconsider their entire plan as well as question the validity of all claims made and information supplied by Dr. Curtis?       James  LaVeck   City  of  Ithaca     Dr.  Kirkpatric  responds  to  representations  made  by  Dr.  Paul  Curtis       To  whom  it  may  concern:     Below  are  excerpts  from  the  video  transcript  of  Dr.  Curtis’s  11-­‐08  presentation  to  the   Cayuga  Heights  Deer  Remediation  Advisory  Committee.  My  comments  on  relevant   transcript  excerpts  are  in  red,  while  Dr.  Curtis’s  and  other  event  participant’s  comments   are  in  blue.           Cayuga  Heights  Mayor  Gilmore:  In  what  communities  has  sterilization  worked?             Dr.  Paul  Curtis:  Depends  how  you  define  “worked.”               Mayor  Gilmore:  Effectively,  measurably  lowered  deer  populations  to  tolerable  levels?         (Note:  based  on  Dr.  Curtis’s  reply,  it  is  clear  he  understood  Mayor  Gilmore  to  be  asking   about  immunocontraception,  not  sterilization)             Dr.  Curtis:  None  that  I’m  aware  of.  Okay,  the  two  studies  that  are  often  touted  as  the   [makes  air  quotes  with  his  hands]  “success  stories”  for  immunocontraception  are  Fire   Island  National  Seashore,  out  on  Long  Island  –  they’ve  done  an  immunocontraception   program  out  there  with  PZP  for  about  10  years,  and  they  have  suppressed  the  growth,   the  population  growth  has  been  lowered  dramatically.  Numbers,  depending  on  how  you   look  at  the  data,  are  maybe  slightly  down,  but  not  a  huge  amount.           Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  See  Rutberg  and  Naugle,  2008.  Population-­‐level  effects  of   immunocontraception  in  white-­‐tailed  deer.  Wildl.  Res.  35:494-­‐501.    This  published  paper   reports  on  a  60+%  decline  in  the  deer  population  on  Fire  Island  communities  where   immunocontraception  has  been  used  for  16  years,  not  ten  years  as  Dr.  Curtis  stated.  60+   %  is  a  “huge”  amount  by  anyone's  standard.       Dr.  Curtis:  The  way  they  census  deer  out  there  –  I’ve  got  some  questions  on  their   numbers,  they  do  browse,  pellet  surveys,  and  that  whole  method  is  questionable  to   start  with  –  that’s  what  they’re  using.           Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  On  the  Fire  Island  project  the  population  study  work  was   carried  out  by  Brian  Underwood,  of  the  USGS  at  Syracuse,  using  distance  sampling   methods,  not  the  methods  described  by  Dr.  Curtis.         Dr.  Curtis:  So,  at  least  they  suppressed  the  herd,  but  they  haven’t  really  reduced  it.    They’ve  still  got  way  more  deer  on  the  landscape  than  they  want,  after  10  years  of  the   program  and  spending  well  over  a  million  dollars  out  there.       Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  Again,  60+  %  reductions  were  documented  in  peer-­‐reviewed   publications.  No  population  goals  were  ever  set  for  the  Fire  Island  project,  by  the  NPS  or   the  Dept.  of  Commerce  for  a  second  project  at  the  National  Institute  of  Standards  and   Technology  (NIST),  in  MD.  .  Who  then,  is  the  “they”  Dr.  Curtis  referred  to  as  having  “way   more  deer  on  the  landscape  than  they  want?  Certainly  not  the  citizens  of  Fire  Island   National  Sea  Shore.  The  costs  at  the  Fire  Island  Sea  Shore  Project,  which  I  directly   tracked  myself  for  the  first  two  years  of  the  project  ('93  and  '94),  never  exceeded   $10,000  for  each  year.  There  is  simply  no  factual  basis  that  a  million  dollars  was  spent.             Dr.  Curtis:  The  other  place  they  cite  as  a  success  is  the  National  Institute  of  Technology   and  Standards  [sic]  down  in  Virginia  [sic].  There’s  a  semi-­‐captive  herd  in  fence,  again  PZP   [an  immunocontraception  vaccine  used  by  Dr.  Kirkpatrick]  was  used  for  many  years.   There’s  actually  some  relatively  good  data,  the  deer  numbers  were  reduced  a  bit  there.   But  again,  there’s  still  more  than  the  goal  density.         Mayor  Gilmore:  They’re  fenced  in?               Dr.  Curtis:  They’re  –  at  least  part  of  the  facility  is  fenced.               Mayor  Gilmore:  Part  of  it.               Audience  member:  Where  was  that?               Dr.  Curtis:  The  National  Institute  of  Technology  and  Standards.  I  think  it’s  Front  Royal,   Virginia.             Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  NIST  is  located  in  Gaithersburg,  MD,  about  90  miles  from   Front  Royal.  It  is  the  typical  urban  deer  situation,  with  highways,  dense  residential  areas   and  continued  commercial  development  surrounding  it.    The  herd  at  NIST  can  leave  or   enter  the  facility  at  will  through  the  many  gates.  One  buck,  for  example,  showed  up  at   Dulles  Airport,  40  miles    away.    Hence,  in  this  context,  the  use  of  the  term  semi-­‐captive   is  extremely  misleading.  The  use  of  this  term  ignores  fundamental  white-­‐tail  deer  social   organization  and  behavior.  These  animals  live  in  matriarchal  family  units  and  if  they  are   not  harassed  and  adequate  nutrition  is  available,  will  spend  their  entire  lives  in  a  one-­‐ half  to  one  square  mile  area.  But  their  doing  so  does  not  make  them  ‘semi-­‐captive’.                 Deer  Committee  Chair  Kate  Supron:  What’s  the  life  expectancy  of  a  doe,  if  they’re  not   hit  by  a  car?               Dr.  Curtis:  At  least  12  years,  some  will  get  a  little  bit  older.  So  that’s,  again,  why  we   don’t  see  the  immunocontraceptive  vaccine  as  being  a  good  solution,  because  that   means  we’re  going  to  have  to  handle  that  deer  six  or  eight  times  in  her  lifetime  –   minimum  -­‐-­‐  to  shut  down  her  reproduction.  That’s  why  you’re  better  off  doing  the  spay   the  first  time  and  not  have  to  worry  about  it  for  12  years.       Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  Immunocontraception  was  developed  with  a  goal  of  no   handling  of  the  animals,  for  ethical  reasons.    An  animal  can  be  darted  six  or  eight  times   in  her  life  without  capturing  her.    This  issue,  of  handling,  or  no  handling  is  an  animal   welfare  issue  and  not  a  scientific  one.             Kate  Supron:  And  when  –  at  what  age  do  they  breed,  and  for  how  long?               Dr.  Curtis:  It’s  variable.  Depends  on  –  it  depends  on  quality  of  habitat.  So  where  you’ve   got  a  really  good  quality  of  habitat  here,  some  of  the  earlier  born  female  fawns  –  maybe   as  many  as  20%  of  the  earlier  born  female  fawns  –  will  breed  as  fawns.  Invariably  almost   all  the  yearling  deer  –  the  year-­‐and-­‐a-­‐half-­‐old  deer  –  will  breed,  and  usually  most   yearling  deer  will  have  a  single  fawn  the  first  birth.  And  then  once  a  deer  is  two-­‐and-­‐a-­‐ half  years  old  or  older,  and  a  full  doe,  then  she  will  typically  have  two  fawns  every  year   for  the  rest  of  her  life.  And  occasionally,  when  resources  are  real  good,  the  winters  are   mild,  she  may  have  three.  We  occasionally  see  triplets.  So,  if  you  start  looking  again  at   the  population  growth  equation,  you’ve  got  annual  first  breed  –  fawns  or  yearlings  for   the  most  part.  You’ve  got  a  long-­‐lived  animal  that’s  going  to  live  12  years,  and  so  to   keep  the  population  stable,  for  a  12-­‐year-­‐old  female  deer,  only  one  of  her  female  fawns   needs  to  survive  during  her  lifetime  in  order  to  keep  the  population  stable.  And  what   are  the  chances  of  that?  Not  very  good.       -­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐     Dr.  Curtis:  So  what  have  we  learned  from  immunocontraception?  Both  the  vaccines   effectively  inhibit  reproduction  for  individual  deer.  They’re  very  costly,  given  the  field   protocols  you  gotta  do.           Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  The  immunocontraceptive  costs  $24/dose  (the  cost  of   production);  $2.15  for  the  dart;  fifty  cents  for  the  adjuvant.  Labor  is  the  only  other   significant  cost.    Dr.  Allen  Rutberg,  at  Tufts  University  School  of  veterinary  Medicine  and   the  lead  author  in  the  scientific  publications  describing  these  two    projects,  did  an   exhaustive  analysis  of  labor  for  deer  contraception.    Contraceptive  darting  time  per  deer   ranges  from  lows  of  2.7  -­‐  to  highs  of  17  hrs  per  deer.    If  you  use  an  average  of  about  10   hrs  per  deer,  and  you  want  to  treat  about  100  deer,  and  you  pay  the  darter  $15/hr,  the   cost  is  about  $15,000  per  100  deer,  which  is  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  what   we  found  at  Fire  Island  (except  the  time  per  deer  was  lower  there).    (see  Rutberg.  2005.   Deer  contraception;    What  we  know  and  what  we  don't  know.  Humane  Wildlife   Solutions.  A.  Rutberg  (ed).  Humane  Society  Press,  Washington  DC,  Pp.  23-­‐42).         Dr.  Curtis:  And  a  couple  of  other  things  we  saw  –  with  the  PZP  vaccine,  because  the   female  deer  weren’t  becoming  pregnant,  we  saw  a  lot  of  increased  activity.  The  buck   continued  to  try  to  breed  those  deer  up  until  March,  when  photoperiods  shut  down   their  estrus  cycling.  Normally  with  deer  -­‐-­‐  typically  the  majority  of  adult  does  would  get   pregnant  right  on  their  first  estrus  in  November  –  first  week  in  November  is  about  the   peak  around  here.  For  those  does  that  don’t  become  pregnant  on  the  first  breed,  they’ll   cycle  again  in  December,  and  most  of  the  does  at  that  point  will  get  pregnant  and   conceive  on  their  second  breeding.  And  then  usually  by  the  time  that  you’re  at  the  end   of  December,  there  aren’t  any  fertile  does  left.  But  with  the  PZP-­‐treated  female,   because  they  can’t  become  fertile,  photoperiod  keeps  that  cycling  going.  And  so  they   cycle  based  on  day  length,  and  they  cycle  again  in  January,  and  they  cycle  again  in   February,  they  cycle  again  in  March.  So  you’ve  got  bucks  chasing  does  all  winter  long,   that  you  wouldn’t  normally  have.  So  that  could  mean  potentially  deer  running  in  front  of   cars.  We  know  most  deer-­‐vehicle  accidents  occur  during  the  peak  of  the  rut  in   November.  There’s  good  data  that  show  that.  And  a  lot  of  these  things  need  to  be   looked  at,  I  think,  if  we’re  going  to  get  into  using  these  vaccines  in  a  management  phase   over  the  long  term.       Dr.  Kirkpatrick  comments:  The  study  referred  to  here  was  done  at  Front  Royal,  at  the   Smithsonian's  Conservation  and  Research  Center  (see  McShea  et  al.  1997.  The  effect  of   immunocontraception  on  behavior  and  reproduction  of  white-­‐tailed  deer.  J.  Wildl.   Manage.  61:560-­‐569.)  What  was  discovered  was  that  (1)  treated  deer  did  extend  their   breeding  season,  (2)  older  bucks  did  all  the  normal  early  breeding  and  then  quit,  (3)   younger  bucks  (spikes  and  fork  horns)  followed  the  estrous  does  around  but  not  in  any   form  of  frenzy,  (4)  the  following  summer,  the  non-­‐pregnant  treated  does  were   significantly  heavier  than  the  non-­‐treated  does  with  fawns.    A  subsequent  study  showed   that  by  fall,  weight  differences  disappeared  (see  Walter  et  al.  2003.  J.  Wildl.Manage.   67:762-­‐766).  The  point  here  is,  that  a  "frenzy"  of  activity  does  not  result  from  the   extended  breeding  season.  And  in  fact,  there  is  published  data  to  show  that,  in  treated   populations  (NIST  in  this  case)  deer-­‐car  accidents  decline  as  population  declines.  (see   Rutberg  and  Naugle  2008.  Human-­‐Wildlife  Confliects  2:60-­‐67.)    If  immunocontraception   and  the  extended  breeding  season  resulted  in  more  car-­‐deer  collisions,  why  did  the  rate   go  down  at  NIST?     End  of  video  transcript  excerpts/comments     Jay  F.  Kirkpatrick,  Ph.D.     Director     The  Science  and  Conservation  Center     2100  South  Shiloh  Road     Billings,  MT  59106     406-­‐652-­‐9719      fax (406) 652-9281   jkirkpatrick@montana.net     Biography  of  Jay  F.  Kirkpatrick,  Ph.D.   Dr. Kirkpatrick grew up in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania and earned the Ph. D. in reproductive physiology from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University in 1971. For 23 years he taught physiology at Montana State University-Billings and for seven of those years he served as Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Along the way of this career Dr. Kirkpatrick worked as a ranger for the National Park Service for seven years, in Rocky Mountain National Park, was a senior scientist for Deaconess Research Institute, and carried out post-doctoral studies at the veterinary schools at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Davis, and at the Center for Reproduction in Endangered Species at the San Diego Zoo.    He also held an academic appointment as adjunct associate professor in the Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California at Davis from 1992 to 2005, and is currently the Director of the Science and Conservation Center at ZooMontana, in Billings. Dr. Kirkpatrick has served on the National Animal Damage Control Advisory Committee for the Secretary of Agriculture. He is a member of the Contraceptive Advisory Group for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and has served on the Montana Wolf Management Council. For the past 38 years Dr. Kirkpatrick has carried out research on fertility control for wild horses and other wildlife, for the purpose of developing non-lethal and humane methods of controlling wildlife populations, and on non-capture methods for studying reproduction in free-ranging wildlife species through  the use of urinary and fecal steroid hormones. His work has included wild horses, African elephants, white-tailed deer, water buffalo, bison, elk and more than 100 species of captive exotic animals in zoos.  Dr. Kirkpatrick is probably best known for his contraceptive research with the wild horses of Assateague Island, for the study of reproduction in the bison of Yellowstone National Park, and more recently for African elephant contraception in the Republic of South Africa. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers and book chapters, of which 54 relate to the biology of wild horses or fertility control of this species. He is also the author of Into The Wind: North America’s Wild Horses. In 2001, the reproductive biology laboratory of the new veterinary center for Kruger National Park, in South Africa was dedicated in his name. In 2002, he was the recipient of the National Park Service’s Researcher of the Year for the Northeast Region, for his contraceptive work with the Assateague wild horses, in 2004 he was awarded the Montana Academy of Science’s Mershon Award, for outstanding contributions in the field of science in Montana, and in 2005, Dr. Kirkpatrick was inducted into the Wild Horse and Burro Exposition Hall of Fame. He is best summarized by a comment by Dr. Ron Keiper, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Penn State University, himself a noted wild horse researcher. He says, “Dr. Kirkpatrick is a champion of wild horses. To their cause he has brought the cold eye of science and the warm heart of compassion. To him wild horses have value simply because they are magnificent creatures that have survived all that nature and man has thrown at them.” Dr. Kirkpatrick lives with his wife Kathie in Billings, Montana, with their two dogs Angus and Farley and cat Savannah.