Mike Egan's opinion wasn't well received by the emotional crowd that packed the meeting of the Johnson County Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners last night. Facing an audience filled with animal rights' activists from Bite Club of KC, Egan was the lone voice supporting the commissioner's plan to cull the deer in Shawnee Mission Park. As he stood at the microphone, more than 20 people stood up angrily and left the room shouting.
"Murderers!"
"Killers!"
"How do you sleep at night?"
Jason Miller, the founder of Bite Club, said the activists' animated presence at the meeting was just the first step in creating "a public relations' nightmare" for the board.
Outside the Administration Building at Shawnee Mission Park, police had cordoned off an area for Bite Club's protest. Miller (right) understood the deer issue wasn't on the board's agenda, but he rallied the animal rights' troops to make a statement. "We want to let the board know there's strong opposition to this," he said. "We got 50 people out in the middle of a storm to a parks' board meeting. We're serious."
Nancy Prinds (left), an Overland Park resident who has visited park for the past 40 years, said the board of commissioners should have been more foresighted about the growing deer herd. She doesn't buy that the deer are sick or starving. "I've been out here twice this week, and they didn't look like they were in any distress," she said. She thinks the impetus for the hunt is nothing more than homeowners' petty complaints about their nibbled flower beds.
Vicky Needham (pink shirt) lives on five acres just west of the park. She said her family delights in seeing the deer; they've been watching a mother raise two fauns over the past several months. "What's a park for?" she asked. "For wildlife." The plan to reduce the herd with a bow hunt, she said, is "ungodly and unholy," teaching area children that problems of convenience can be solved with bloodshed.
Needham led the crowd in singing "Home on the Range" and started chants: "A park, not a killing field!" "Every deer, one voice!"
Judy Carman (teal jacket), co-founder of Animal Outreach of Kansas, and other demonstrators tried to get information about the hunt from a Lenexa police officer. The cop pleaded ignorance to the specifics.
Once inside, more than a dozen animal rights' activists begged the board to reconsider the hunt. Miller accused the commissioners of slaughtering the deer out of "bloodlust or apathy" and called for their removal. Jim Cass, another protester, asked the board to give citizens time to raise private funds to sterilize a portion of the herd. The pleas for the deer lasted nearly an hour.
Board president, Gary Montague, (center), tried to keep order. "I ask that there not be applause, cat calls or cheering," he said at the start. "I'd like this to be as orderly as possible." After each speaker, though, his gavel-banging was muted by whoops and applause. The board, many of them reading other documents, waited out the public comment period without reaction. When it was done, they didn't say anything about the deer hunt; they simply moved on to their other agenda items.
Outside, Bite Club members gathered around Miller. He said their next step is a billboard -- and possibly filing for an injunction to stop the hunt.
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Bow kills are not slow. A sharp broadhead through the heart, arteries, lungs, or liver will drop the deer in seconds. It is every hunter's responsibility to practice until they can consistently hit the mark within a reasonable range and only take ethical, high percentage shots at standing animals. The idea that these deer are terrorized is just ridiculous. They really don't know what happened at the shot. They just know that something scared them. They are no more scared than when you surprise them during your morning jog.
As for not seeing deer everywhere you look, that is what a healthy herd looks like. You won't see deer everywhere, as they are really solitary animals that avoid human contact at all costs. The reason you saw them before is because there were too many animals and they were forced to expose themselves to human contact in order to find food.
I don't know of anyone who has lost half of the deer they have shot with a bow or otherwise. Even the Wisconsin statistic was only 15% lost. And since I can't find the source of that stat at either the Associated press site or the Wisconsin DNR site I tend to doubt it's authenticity. And even if true, most of those deer probably died quickly but ran to a place where they could not be found.
As for letting a wounded deer bed down before you pursue it, the reasoning is that if you push a deer with a marginal wound it will run to the hinterlands and never be recovered, thereby wasting that harvest. By allowing it to bed down and die nearby, you can probably still recover it. It is the responsible thing to do,even if it seems unpleasant. It's not about cruelty, because you'll never get another shot at that animal to finish it off. You'll just push it further away. Understand that no hunter wants to merely wound an animal.
And wishing people to get hurt in hunting accidents and CWD... really shows your lack of compassion and your abundance of ignorance. Approach this in an objective manner and talk to hunters and antis alike and take the emotion out of it, and I think you will find that hunters have as much compassion for the animals as a whole, as you do for each individual animal.
And if you really think starvation is preferable to a broadhead through the lungs, I think you have a distorted sense of suffering. I'll take the arrow any day. Starvation is not a natural death. We have more whitetails today than when Columbus dicovered America, because they thrive on agriculture. So, the natural state is far fewer deer and more predators. Why is it so horrible for us to be the predators?
Since this has happened, has anyone drove/walked through the park? Let me tell you, it was so depressing as there was not 1 deer walking around, not 1!! We drove around the other night 2 different times as that is why we went to the park was to see the wildlife.. There were always young bucks and doe with their babies and no matter what time of day we went there was NOT 1 deer to see..
Bowhunting was not the way to go, as that is not a fast death, that is a slow and painful death that I can't even imagine for the person killing these animals as they to are animals.
This is horrible and walking through their now is like walking through a grave yard as you know they are lying out there dead but nothing you can do about it..
I understand some hunting, but close the park and hunt during actual hunting times....
So let me understand, Hunting by fancy sharpshooters is going to be when it is dark which is not fair to the deer and puts them at a disadvantage. And silencers. Please. this is just cruel....
I do like deer; however, when people are hitting them while driving all over the area, something has to be done.
Is it less cruel to constantly smash deer with our vehicles?
Maybe fences along roads could help. I do not really know. Personally, I do not drive at night (in a non-city area, or highway) because of all the deer around here.
Maybe the protestors could make a big deer farm, round them up, and keep them all there.
Bea Elliot - "If they go through with this killing spree my fingers are so crossed for a few "hunting accidents" and a wide spread issue of CWD!"
Bea, you blew your respect for life argument there honey, wishing accidents on hunters and disease on the deer you pretend to love so much just shot down your own position.
Ignorance is bliss!
Isn't the whole reason for the reduction in deer because of all the car accidents. Somehow getting hit by a car doesn't seem better than being shot or starving. Everyone can argue this point into the ground but the deer will die regardless. You are not saving the deer. If you want to keep them in your backyard safe and sound then be my guest.
I so agree with Katie and did you know that hunting organization are so busy producing deer for recreational hunting? If hunting is about "reduction" then why is it that "deer management" manual always mentions about "production" , "fawn crops", "fawn recruits", "kill predators", "provide deer for millions of sportsman" etc etc.?
You know damn well "Anonymous" that so many deer are left wounded and crippled from sports bowkillers. In the "tracking wounded deer" site they teach how to "let the deer lay up and day" so that they do not spook the deer to run further and why are they so "concerned" about that? They don't want to lose their trophy deer so they let the deer suffer for hours till they either die or "stiffen" as the hunters calls it. Now as far as the wounded and crippled deer I believe many of the unretrieved ones are the does because hunters kill them mostly because if you kill a doe you "earn a buck". In Wisconsin 08 hunting season 68,000 wounded deer were not recovered
http://i478.photobucket.com/al...
I am not saying they are all from bowkillers (obviously)and lets say those numbers are wrong and its 6,000 that is still way too many unnecessary pain and suffering.
"Its easy to suggest alternative methods, but nobody wants to pay for them. "
Who is "nobody"? Of course there are many people who are willing to pitch in and help pay for the IC and I believe the hunting organization should as well if they are so "concerned" about DVA's injuries and death but of course they continue to reject IC and fear it like the plague. Hunting org and hunters mislead the public on the effectiveness, safety and cost . Hunters do not want IC because then they will not be able to create large deer herd after mass slaughter year after year.
watch this video and tell me that hunting org are not deliberately ballooning deer population to the maximum carrying capacity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Overall hunters not only cause pain and suffering to our wildlife but to innocent human life as well!
Were we not once "hunters and gatherers" ourselves? I am sure that those of you against bow hunting have never met a hunter or even been hunting and all that you see are images that are manipulated to put it in a negative light. Do things die; yes they do, but it is far from animal cruelty.
The sign about 50% of deer shot are never recovered sounds like a made up statistic to me. I've been bow hunting for six years, shot 12 deer, and recovered 12 deer. But then again anybody can write anything on a sign and pass it off as true.
Also, I'm sure that when you suggest how to pay for the costly sterilization, they will all run. Its easy to suggest alternative methods, but nobody wants to pay for them.
We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?
--George Bernard Shaw (Living Graves, published 1951)
When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings.
--William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology
let the deer live as they deserve, thanks for the great article Carolyn!
How out of touch with reality is this board? Does anyone realise that nature has been looking after it's own longer than our species has been on the planet? I'd like to know what you're going to do about the over-population of bow owners. That's a group that needs control more than any number of peaceable animals.
Anonymous implies that the herd will grow to an unsustainalbe level.
Well, guess what happens then: They die a NATURAL death. We can argue these two positions until the cows come home but between:
"It's better to die a natural death of starvation" and "It's better to be terrorized, traumatized, wounded, maimed, and die a slow fearful death," I'll speak for the deer as authoritatively as others: Deer would prefer the starvation to the mayhem.
The deer in the park obviously lack any sort of natural predators. An unchecked population will continue to grow until the park can no longer support such numbers of deer. There is a need for some sort of predator to keep the herd in check. In this case, a hunt is the most cost effective solution. Or I guess someone could introduce natural predators such as mountain lions, wolves or bears to the park. I'm sure the joggers and dog owners will love that.
And why would anyone wish for CWD? Especially one claiming to be an animal lover. CWD is a horrible disease that is always fatal to the infected animals but is not transferrable to humans. Get a clue.
Obviously there is a "people problem" - Urban sprawl has eliminated any reasonable amount of room for the animals who were first here to begin with.
There are NONLETHAL alternatives to this butchery!!!
If they go through with this killing spree my fingers are so crossed for a few "hunting accidents" and a wide spread issue of CWD! Payback to mother nature!
Stop this insane killing spree of innocent life!
I think the comments from warwak put things in perspective. If you eat meat you are a corpse muncher. These clowns go to a meeting, are specifically asked to conduct themselves respectfully, so they proceed to yell, shout, call people killers and generally act like idiots. How do these people expect anyone to give them a shred of credibility when they go out of their way to show their ass? While I agree that bow hunting is probably not the most humane way to go, their argument is lost in their moronic behavior.
Miller is an Anarchist, his website compares the plight of Animals to Apartheid. nuff said.
It absolutely enrages me that people come from cities and move into the forest, and take away animals land. Then they want THEM gone! Leave the deer alone, move away if you don't like them!!
Look what corpse-munchers do to loving cows, chickens, pigs, and other partners on this planet we all have the privilege of sharing.
Corpse-munchers do not know how to conduct themselves in the Universe. We search in outerspace for other life forms; yet, most apathetic pus-chuggers ignore the many amazing beings right here on Earth.
All corpse-munchers really care about is how that one will taste.
Corpse-munchers are so disconnected they can't even stand having deer wander through their packed lives.
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