We shouldn’t disrupt their habitat unless it’s absolutely necessary. “I’m against killing animals, all animals. “I think they should trap the deer and transport them to other environments instead of shooting them,” Akins said. Victoria Akins, a senior majoring in English, said she believes the University should not kill any deer. can’t re-grow because of all the damage the deer have done.” “The damage done can be seen four feet high on most of the trees. “It is a necessary step to make the Nature Preserve what it is supposed to be,” Frankel said. “Humans have mucked up the environment so much and we’re trying to redress the balance.”įrankel said that in order to maintain the Nature Preserve, the culling is a necessary step. “We appreciate the deer very much, but the forest deserves to survive too,” Shepherd said. Shepherd said he and the other members of CUE “care very much about all life forms,” but that he believed these options would be too expensive and would not get the job done. Shepherd said some students have taken issue with the proposal to begin killing deer to lower the campus population of the animals, and that they have proposed several options that would avoid killing deer, such as relocating or sterilizing the deer. The tree stands would be set up at least 500 feet away from any buildings or residences. Trained sharpshooters in trees would wait for deer to show up, attracted by food. Shepherd said that safety risks to humans while culling took place would be prevented by making parts of the Nature Preserve off-limits to civilians, especially at night, when much of the culling would take place. Lindsay Frankel, a junior majoring in English and a member of CUE, said she believed the goal was to reduce the deer population to about 15 to 20. Shepherd said the University’s goal is to reduce the deer population by 90 percent, down to about 10 deer total. “There’s practically nothing that deer won’t eat.” “The prognosis would be that there would be no forest,” Shepherd said. Shepherd said he believes that vegetation in the Nature Preserve will “grow old and disappear” if the deer culling does not take place. 20 species of wild flowers have disappeared from the Nature Preserve, mostly because of deer. “There has been almost zero re-growth, almost no … regeneration. “ either the deer or the forest,” Shepherd said. He said that Dylan Horvath, BU’s steward of campus natural areas, and Michael Armstrong, adjunct assistant professor of biological sciences, have been taking censuses of the deer population for many years. 10 to 20 times the population that can be sustained by the forest.” “Right now there are 60 to 70 deer in areas that we want to cull. “We don’t hate the deer, we just love the forest a bit more than having all those deer around,” Shepherd said. We are moving in a very deliberate way we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.” “We have identified the problem, but have not set up a course of action. “We’re looking at action we can take which will reduce impact on our Nature Preserve and other areas of campus,” Van Voorst said. James Van Voorst, vice president for administration, said BU was still in the early stages of working toward a decision on how to manage campus deer. The deer meat will be donated to local food pantries, such as Binghamton CHOW. If this option is selected, the deer will be baited using food and then shot in the head by sharpshooters in trees to make death immediate. The University is looking into hiring a private company to conduct the culling. The deer population on campus is far greater than the environment can handle, according to Julian Shepherd, an associate professor of biological sciences at BU and a member of the Committee of the University Environment (CUE), a group made up of faculty, staff and students that has been discussing this problem. The Binghamton University administration is considering options to control the campus deer population that include culling, or selectively killing, the deer beginning this winter break.
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