City will pay professional sharpshooters to kill deer herd.

I used to live in Maryland which has a MAJOR deer population. Often they would call in sharpshooters to take out a certain amount of deer.

Deer are dangerous to drivers. My brother was put in the hospital and his car totaled due to hitting a deer. When I lived there, every week I heard a story of some serious car accident due to deers jumping into oncoming traffic. I actually had to call 911 while driving on I270, a large group of deer jumped over barriers onto the highway and caused a major accident involving a number of cars. Was a horrifying thing to witness.

They are not just pests as some claimed above - they are a serious danger.



[edit on 1/10/2009 by greeneyedleo]

I live in a rural area and the herd stays pretty much under control from coyotes and traffic accidents but we do have them come into town in the winter. People learn to deal with them by fencing off the plants deer eat like cedar and yew. Then in the spring when the good food is out again you take the fencing off. Stakes and 6' wide chicken wire do the trick.

Having a dog pee around the yard isn't a bad idea either. The deer seem to make a feeding round routine so when they first show up in the yard I chase them off and after a few times they know to stay away.

Driving at night I am always on the lookout for deer or moose at the side of the road but I guess a herd running across the highway would take me by suprise too.

Using frangible ammunition would mitigate the risk somewhat. Alternately, they could use shotguns.

reply to post by WyrdeOne


Why would that help? Please explain.

They should try a shotgun only and or Archery only or both! Archery session first then the shotgun, and the rules should be the first dear you check in must be a doe or they will take your equipment from you and give a $500 dollar fine, & you get your equipment back after you pay the fine. Now after taking a doe you can go back the woods and get a buck. The county government can even do raffle for the permits for $50 dollars each chance. An Archery only hunt is about safe as it gets and the range it very short and it does not make any sound to upset anyone.

TO thin a herd, a State should have a lottery to issue tags for citizens to hunt them. If the area is poulated, issue only Bow tags.

I've seen this done (for elk as well) and it would generate a few bucks (no pun intended) for the State, as well as provide meat for those who desire it.

Why pay some guys to cap some deer? What a retarded way to go about the issue.

Maybe Cheney could join the hunt. That would deter a few sharpshooters from accepting the commission.

edit to add. If residents are uncomfortable to witness a kill, give them a free tour of a slaughter house the day(s) of the hunt.


[edit on 11-1-2009 by imd12c4funn]

ok - it seems that a bit of an explaination is required , as to the difference between ` a controlled cull - to thin a herd ` and ` open season hunting - a general free for all as hunters try to get the best value for thier licence `

i do not mean this as any insult - as i have engaged in precicely the same activity - but :

hunters are greedy

its only natural - when you are paying for a govt licence that has a bag limit - you go for a prize specemine - either large and plump , for the venison - or with a impressive rack for the trophy wall

OTOH - cullers - who are getting paid to do the job wouldnt dream of shooting the herd alpha buck or a beutiful hind in prime condition

they target the one with mange , the one that limps , the one with a racking cough etc etc

that way - the fittest are left - to survive and thrive - creating a stonger healther herd which will leave prime targets for next seasons hunters and ensure that the fawns born next spring are bred from the healthiest stock - and will find food - because all the " dead weight " has been trimmed from the herd

its that simple , and thats why paid cullers who will follow thier instructions to the letter are employed to thin the herd

because the unfit , desiesed , injured and starving deer they shoot do not make good tropies - and yeild a poor venison harvest [ if they can be used for anything but dog food ]

declaring open season - and letting hunters loose will just make matters worse - as they will not take the animals that NEED culling

like i said - do not take offence anyone - i hunt too - and have also done game keeping work

and unless i am getting paid to conduct estate management - i am always looking for bags i can east / sell - not mangy dead weight

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
We have to kill them, or else they'll die...

Come now, that is a bit of a straw-man, is it not? Would you rather they starved to death competing with one another, or be hunted in a moderately humane manner, where at least what little meat remains on their bones can be used to some productive degree?

reply to post by ignorant_ape


take out the trophies. Allow some doe tags as well. The herd will survive. It will eventually become too large again and a repeated thinning will need to take place.

If you take out the lame ducks, you are asking for a quickening of the heard numbers to increase once again, expediting the need to do it again.

Seasonal hunt has nothing to do with it. may lose a some fawn, but that's another error the State makes depending on when the herd is decreased.

[edit on 11-1-2009 by imd12c4funn]

Besides the starvation problem with overcrowding, too many deer lead to the spread of Lyme disease and other deer tick-borne diseases.

Thinning out the herd is a well accepted way of stopping the spread of those diseases.

reply to post by jsobecky


Exactly!! That is something that is not typically understood by people unless they spend a lot of time outdoors. Lyme disease is a real threat, as is a lot of different types of tick borne diseases. I have had quite a few family members fall ill because of this. We take hunting serious not just because it is a tradition, but because it is quite necessary when you are living along side them.

Originally posted by ChilledVoodoo


5000 bucks to kill some deer? This is crazy! I cant belive sharpshooters are going to go in to this very populated community and start shooting rifles around like nutballs! Rifle bullets can travel up to a couple miles, so if they miss who knows what they might hit. Killing Deer for sport is ok with me, to slay them because they chew up your bushes, thats just dumb. Deer were here first and are gods gift to man. We should not Kill and destroy everything that is an inconvineience.

www.wzzm13.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow, that's a really shortsighted interpretation.

Deer are dying from disease, starvation and contact with automobiles...due to overpopulation because we humans thought it would be nice to eliminate the deers natural predators, and when hunters hunt, they kill the biggest, strongest deer. So instead of following some sort of natural order, humans have created a very unnatural order. The weak are breeding. The sick remain with the herd and spread their diseases. Deer attacks, where deer attack humans are also on the rise.

Would you rather an open season within the city limits? Or a few marksmen eliminating deer in as much of a controlled way as possible?

reply to post by The Last Man on Earth


I don't think it's a strawman to phrase the argument as "we have to kill them or else they'll die" - I think it's just a humorous/ridiculous re-wording of the argument to poke fun.

Again, I support hunters and I support hunting, it just makes me sad and ashamed when we have to come up with excuses to pacify the PETA crowd. Without hunting and without hunters we wouldn't even be here talking about this.

It shouldn't be relegated to a hobby - it's more than that.

Update: Well the sharp shooters came in, and they didn't really kill that many deer, because of the crowd of protesters that were too close to one area, that made it unsafe for them to shoot in that area. Now they are going to do another massacure in the future, and i will be keeping an eye on that.

Originally posted by ChilledVoodoo


5000 bucks to kill some deer? This is crazy! I cant belive sharpshooters are going to go in to this very populated community and start shooting rifles around like nutballs! Rifle bullets can travel up to a couple miles, so if they miss who knows what they might hit. Killing Deer for sport is ok with me, to slay them because they chew up your bushes, thats just dumb. Deer were here first and are gods gift to man. We should not Kill and destroy everything that is an inconvineience.

So you figure deer were here first and were God's gift to man....but you also say you're fine with killing deer for sport? Quite the difference.

god damn joke



[edit on 2-8-2009 by MrSmith]

I was one of those sharpshooter one time.

But i used a long bow and did it at midnight to 4 in the morning.

You would be surprised how few people even knew i was taking the deer.

And yes the meat went to the homeless and poor.(except for a few good venison steaks)

I did not hunt in the housing area but just at the boundary zone as the deer moved in and out of the housing to the woods.
By the way in the 4 months i did it i also got 3 burglars. one walked so close to me i could have grab the hat right off his head as he carried off someones TV. The cops loved it when they got my cell phone call as i followed the burglars with there loot.
Bagging burglars was more fun then deer.

One of the other sharpshooters i worked with used a home-built 40 caliber air rifle.
he worked all over the state doing herd thinning because his rifle was short range and would drop a deer without waking everyone in the neighborhood up.

Originally posted by mrsdudara
An overpopulation of them in any area is not healthy for anyone. I dont know why they have to pay someone though. They usually just open up deer season again.

These are city deer. Who wants a bunch of drunken Joe Lunchboxes blasting away inside the city.?