Geake for Norwalk Common Council

The Second Taxing District owns two water sources: our main one in Wilton and an secondary one in New Canaan (only used when additional water is needed – once every five or six years). Because these are public watersheds, their use for recreational purposes are severely limited and requires a special permit from the state.

Since 2003, the taxing district has allowed the Town of Wilton to conduct a special deer hunt to thin the herd. This is completely under the town’s control, and they even pay for the state permit. This year, the Town of New Canaan has asked to run the same sort of hunt, for the same reason and under the same conditions as we impose on Wilton.

These hunts are now being opposed by animal rights activists who object to the killing of innocent animals and have proposed that the town’s use a form of contraception to control the deer population. The problem with that proposal is that this contraceptive will not even by approved until next year at the earliest, according to a protester who spoke at the meeting at which the agreement with New Canaan was approved.

As I have said (probably too many times), I’m a country boy from Vermont. Years ago, when I was a Boy Scout, my troop helped the state Fish & Game Department with its annual deer census. Basically, what this entailed was searching the areas of the woods where the deer were known to winter and counting those that starved to death. This is not something a feeling person can do and then believe that we don’t have to control that population.

Admittedly, Connecticut winters are nowhere as severe as Vermont’s, but the stark reality is that man has encroached on wildlife’s habitat to such a degree that many of the deer’s natural predators have gone elsewhere, so old age, starvation, and the occasional run-in with a car or a truck are the only ways the herd is thinned.

I will gladly rethink my approval of these hunts when other methods are both proven and have been approved for use. For now, I see these hunts – conducted with experienced hunters – as far more humane than letting these poor creatures starve.