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Experts Call City's Deer Vasectomy Plan "Really Stupid"
By
Jen Chung
Published May 17, 2016
Modified May 17, 2016
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By
Jen Chung
Published May 17, 2016
Modified May 17, 2016
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Last week, the de Blasio administration unveiled their plans to manage Staten Island's exploding deer population by giving every single male deer a vasectomy. However, some experts are questioning their solution—a Cornell University ecologist told the Staten Island Advance, "It's difficult for me to come up with all the reasons why this is a really stupid plan. It's ridiculous from the onset."
The city hopes to perform vasectomies over the next three years in order to bring down the deer population by 10-30%. But biologists say this really won't do anything. The Post painted this vivid picture:
In reality, female white-tailed deer go into heat in the autumn rutting season. They emit a powerful scent that attracts males, who chase them and battle each other until every last doe is pregnant. Normally, the rut lasts a month or two. But with bucks shooting blanks, the does will go into heat repeatedly throughout the fall and winter. The hot-to-trot does could attract bucks from near and far for many more months — including still-potent potential mates swimming over from New Jersey.
Al Cambronne, who has written about deer, said that their mating habits are "more random and promiscuous and chaotic" than the city assumes, adding, "One buck can breed many doe."
Cornell ecologist Dr. Paul Curtis said that when he and colleagues conducted a study (PDF) about managing deer numbers in suburban areas, performing vasectomies on bucks was very difficult, explaining that the biggest ones that have the widest ranges don't respond to sedatives, "We could only do three vasectomies— it wasn't safe for the deer and wasn't safe for us," and described the process as "stressful" for the bucks.
Other possible courses of action would be sterilizing does (which is expensive); contraceptive for does (which don't last very long); and euthanizing part of the herd. The current deer vasectomies plan has been endorsed by NYCLASS, a prominent donor to Mayor de Blasio that is now being probed by the FBI.
A City Hall spokesperson told the Post, "We are very confident in our proposal. It’s a smart approach that can be implemented quickly, before the problem increases.”
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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