Examples of Local Deer Reduction Efforts by Municipalities
Darien
In 1997, Darien’s First Selectman formed a Deer Management Committee. In March 2005, the committee presented a deer management plan to the Board of Selectmen to allow hunting on Sellecks Woods (28 acres), owned by the town, and on Dunlap Woods (22 acres), owned by the Darien Land Trust. Liability issues surrounding the hunt prevented hunting at Dunlap Woods and delayed hunting at Sellecks Woods until mid-December. To address local liability issues, the town acquired additional insurance at minimal cost and required hunters to sign an indemnity agreement (Appendix 1). A late start, unfavorable weather conditions, and unauthorized human disturbance resulted in a decision to end that year’s hunt early. Over a period of several years, several hundred pounds of venison were processed and donated to food shelters throughout the area. The program was originally run by a town committee for a number of years, but now deer management in the town is led by an independent effort partnering hunters with homeowners.
Greenwich
In 2004-2005, the Town of Greenwich developed and implemented a deer herd reduction and monitoring program approved by the DEEP on select town-owned land. The herd reduction consisted of a 4-night sharpshooting program on 3 town-owned properties, which resulted in the removal of 80 deer. From this removal, 2,400 pounds of venison were donated to local food pantries. Town cost was estimated at $646 per deer removed (total cost = $51,680). In addition, the Conservation Commission identified large landowners and encouraged them to allow hunting and continued to promote hunting as the main tool for reducing and maintaining the deer population.
New Canaan
The town-appointed a deer committee in 1998. The committee collected information on deer and deer management, evaluated all possible deer management options, and recommended to town residents that bowhunting be used as a means to reduce the deer herd. The town allocated funds to conduct surveys of the deer population and residents’ opinions about deer. The town also hired a deer manager to contact all homeowners who owned at least 6 acres to encourage them to allow bowhunting. A sportsmen’s group assisted the community by making hunters available to landowners interested in reducing the deer population in their area.
During the first 2 years of the program, the number of deer removed by hunting tripled.(30) Archery harvest increased from 19 deer in 1997 to a 20-year average harvest of 74 deer/year while deer vehicle accidents decreased from 62 deer in 1997 to a 20-year average of 12 deer-vehicle accidents/year from before to after promoting hunting in the town.
Redding
Bowhunting on private property has been the primary means of reducing deer numbers, while owners of larger properties have been specifically encouraged to allow hunting on their land. However, in 2005, a subcommittee of the Redding Conservation Commission prepared a report that examined the effects of deer on forest ecology as a result. In October 2005, the Conservation Commission voted unanimously to allow controlled hunting on town-owned land (about 1,000 acres) to protect and preserve the land from the effects of deer overabundance. It was noted that 40 deer-vehicle accidents were recorded in 2005 in Redding. Due to late approval, limited bowhunting was allowed on some town-owned properties, resulting in the removal of 32 deer. In 2005, Redding appointed a deer warden and assistant deer warden to further deer management efforts by overseeing deer reduction efforts. The number of town properties hunted per year has averaged around 9. Controlled hunts continue throughout the town today, with much reduced harvest numbers averaging about 17 deer per year with much fewer deer-vehicle accidents (12 deer-vehicle accidents) occurring per year.
Ridgefield
In 2004, the Board of Selectmen established the Ridgefield Deer Committee to determine the extent of deer overpopulation in Ridgefield and assess how the town should address the problem. In June 2005, the committee voted 17 to 1 to approve a report containing many recommendations, including controlled hunting on town-owned property. In July 2005, the report was presented to the Board of Selectmen. In November 2005, the Board appointed a 5-member deer management committee to implement the recommendations. In May 2006, the residents of Ridgefield voted in support (73%) of modifying the local ordinance to allow hunting on town-owned land, and, during that year, 73 deer-vehicle accidents were recorded. The number of town properties hunted per year has ranged between 10 to 15 and the number of deer taken has ranged between 92 in 1998 to 336 in 2009. Controlled hunts still continue throughout the town today, with much reduced harvest numbers (35 deer) and deer-vehicle accidents (2 deer-vehicle accidents), an indication that population control efforts have been working. More information is in the Ridgefield Controlled Hunt Fact Sheets .
Wilton
In 2001, a deer committee was assembled to research perceived problems associated with deer. The committee sponsored public meetings, conducted a town-wide survey of residents, and created a newsletter dedicated to deer issues. In 2002, the first controlled deer hunt administered by Wilton was conducted on water company lands within the town and the committee sent a letter to large landowners encouraging them to allow hunting. In 2003, the deer committee produced a final report and began implementing recommendations from the report. In 2004, a second controlled hunt was held. In 2005, the town changed an ordinance that previously prohibited hunting on town-owned properties to allow hunting for the purpose of reducing nuisance wildlife that threatens public health and safety or threatens the town’s natural resources. During that year, 47 deer-vehicle accidents were recorded. The town initiated its first hunt on town-owned open space in 2005 and added a second town-owned property in 2006.
The Wilton Land Conservation Trust also authorized hunting on one of its parcels. The number of properties hunted per year has increased to 16 in total. Controlled hunts still continue throughout the town today, with 72 deer harvested in 2022. A total of 15 deer-vehicle accidents were reported in 2022, an indication that population control efforts have been working.
Sandwich terns are a graceful seabird known for their committed, forceful and spectacular plunging dives into the ocean to catch fish.
Thousands of the species started to fall sick across Europe in 2022 with tens of thousands dying as a lineage of the H5N1 bird flu – 2.3.4.4b – spread through the continent’s wild flocks.
The effects of the virus on the brain cause the terns to flounder on the ground, craning and straining their necks in a suffering behaviour known as star-gazing. It is difficult to watch.
“I remember a colony at Scolt Head Island in Norfolk,” says Prof James Pearce-Higgins, the director of science at the British Trust for Ornithology.
“You had adult terns trying to mate with dead terns and chicks begging for food from their dying parents.
The sandwich tern (pictured) is a close relative of the greater crested tern, which is common in Australia. Photograph: Natural England/Allan Drewitt/PA
“It was a real sense of a colony collapse as you watched this transfer of the virus between birds.”
Since the virus re-emerged in Europe in 2021 it has swept over every other continent, killing millions of birds and mammals, and infecting more than 400 bird species as well as mammals – in particular, seals and sea lions.
The virus was finally detected in Australia two months ago in migratory seabirds that likely brought the disease from breeding grounds in the subantarctic.
This week, the federal government revealed analysis of the potential threat to Australia’s wildlife which showed almost 400 species of birds and mammals were at “high risk” or worse if they caught the disease.
One expert who worked on the analysis, Prof John Woinarski of Charles Darwin University, tells the Guardian he expects the disease will have spread across the continent within a year.
Pearce-Higgins says: “I would expect Australia is going to experience large mortalities, like those we have been through, and it’s going to put some species at risk.”
Almost half of Australia’s bird species are unique to the continent, meaning that a lot of uncertainty comes with predicting what H5N1 could do to the animal population.
It also means the risk of the virus causing planet-wide extinctions is higher now that every continent is affected.
Death toll will be ‘confronting’
“We’ve been looking overseas since 2021 and seeing the advance of this virus,” says Dr Sara Ryding, an evolutionary ecologist at Deakin University.
“It has been horrible overseas – tens of thousands of birds dying in single colonies.
“The concern was, we knew it was going to arrive eventually – how could it not? But we didn’t know what it would look like when it got here.”
Spending time around bodies of water, where the virus can live for months, can make animals susceptible to bird flu. Photograph: Danielle Connor/Alamy
The research suggested the most at-risk families of birds were gannets and boobies (Sulidae), followed in descending order of risk by cranes (Gruidae), darters (Anhingidae), ducks, geese and swans (Anatidae), and gulls, terns and noddies (Laridae). But a host of other bird families – including pelicans, crows, ravens, falcons and kestrels – were all predicted to be susceptible.
While many species of those birds are not considered threatened, the sight of large numbers of dead and sick birds, particularly larger species like swans and pelicans, “is going to be confronting,” Ryding says.
“I don’t want to cause panic, but we have seen the devastation it has caused overseas and there’s no reason to think it will be any less devastating here,” she says. “I think it will be really bad.”
Studies have identified several behaviours that can make animals susceptible to catching the disease, such as scavenging dead and dying animals for food (as do gulls and Tasmanian devils), spending time in dense colonies (like seals and waterbirds) and spending time around bodies of water where the virus can live for weeks or months, or where other infected animals might also be around.
The virus can cause debilitating conditions for the seals and sea lions – known collectively as pinnipeds – with severe neurological and respiratory symptoms.
Australian fur seals near Maria Island, Tasmania. Because they live in dense groups, seals are particularly susceptible to bird flu. Photograph: Robert Wyatt/Alamy
Australia has three resident pinniped species – the New Zealand fur seal, the Australian fur seal and the already endangered Australian sea lion – and government analysis has suggested the risk for all three from the virus is “very high”, meaning “very severe reduction in population size or viability is predicted” if the virus reaches them.
Dr Saia Bartes is an Argentinian marine biologist who has just completed her PhD on Australian fur seals at Deakin University and has helped study declines in South American sea lions after the virus struck there.
A young Australian fur seal near Montague Island, NSW. Seal numbers are still recovering from commercial hunting. Photograph: By Wildestanimal/Getty Images
“It was devastating for them. In north Patagonia, we lost a third of the sea lions,” she says.
Because pinnipeds often share space with infected birds, and tend to be in tightly packed groups, Bartes says they are particularly susceptible.
Pinniped numbers are still recovering from commercial hunting, she says, and “they could start declining again really quickly, which is happening in South America” if the virus found them.
Back in the UK, Pearce-Higgins says there is some hope. Their experience of collaboration with conservation groups, volunteers and local authorities through weekly and later monthly meetings had been critical in the response.
And there were some signs the impacts of the virus may be slowing.
“The hope is that because a lot of these birds are long-lived, the population could be more resilient. But we still don’t really know the probabilities of future outbreaks,” he says.
“It might look really bad for a few years, but the hope is that [Australia] can focus on the conservation of what is left.”
Thinking we have time left to address climate change, or that “Net Zero by 2050” will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperature record.
Lies are a lot like gourds. They come in hundreds of different varieties, sizes, and bulbous, twisty shapes. Some are off-puttingly spiked and prickly, while others remind us of fall childhood memories.Some lies, if prepared correctly like squash or pumpkin, can appear delicious and irresistible, concealing a dark reality: “I can’t believe you’re not a model! For five thousand dollars I can photograph you so you have a portfolio.” The central aim of most lies is to avoid consequences. When an untruth is especially desperate and self-serving, it can be unintentionally hilarious: “Yes I tried marijuana… but I did not inhale.”
Embezzling money or murdering someone for the insurance pay-out are part of a phylum of lies that cross into serious criminality. These deceptions’ sphere of influence often stays fairly localized. But sometimes covering up the initial lie can spawn lots of other lies that spread and spread, like with Watergate or Bernie Madoff. What started as a little decorative Thanksgiving-gourd-sized lie suddenly becomes larger and quite ugly. This family of lies strives to not only avoid consequences, but to gain status and resources, another common end game of many deceptions. And then there are the large society-wide lies: hulking distortions and misrepresentations watered and tended to by leaders, mass media, culture, and industry.
This particular sub-genus of grifts, half-truths and strategic omissions have led throughout modern history to wars, mass death, societal collapse, and the theft of humanity’s great treasures. “Manifest Destiny.” “Aryan superiority.” “The divine right of kings.” “The domino theory.” “Israel has a right to defend itself.” “Oxycontin isn’t addictive because it’s time-released.” These county-fair, blue ribbon-winning prevarications tend to be driven by a myriad of short-term incentives, irrational manipulated fears, unexamined assumptions, convenient blind spots, and of course… the desire to avoid consequences and expand status and resources.
“People always pay their mortgages” became the half-true rallying cry used by Wall Street, news media, and politicians to collapse the world economy in 2007. Turns out when you change lending rules to feed an unregulated derivatives market by giving mortgages to people who can’t pay them… they don’t. “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction” (along with the subvariations on the central lie—“We want to bring democracy,” “If you don’t support the troops, you support the terrorists,” “Saddam orchestrated 9/11,” etc) killed a million people, devastated the entire nation of Iraq, and in many ways also gutted the United States, all while enriching oil companies, weapons manufacturers, big banks, juicing TV ratings, and expanding the power of the Bush/Cheney presidency.
However, there is one type of rare, gargantuan, towering lie that makes all the other mass lies throughout human history seem like frightened, scurrying, little adorable fibs.
It is a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventually—as the deception entered mainstream culture—even by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day. It is a constantly growing gourd that even as a baby back in the 1970s was the size of three aircraft carriers. These days it is so massive it is almost easier to refer to what isn’t part of it (Disneyland, a BLT, that green croc by the side of the highway) than what is.
This massive lie can best be summed up as “when it comes to climate change… we have more time.”
To be clear, we are not talking about the kind of total climate denial one would find on the extremist, lunatic fringe inhabited by the likes of Alex Jones or the current U.S. President. And we’re not referring to cartoonish hucksters and “climate skeptics” like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson.
Polling shows only 14.8 percent of Americans deny the basic sixth grade science behind global warming. To put that in perspective, as much as 10 percent of the population still believes the Earth is flat.
No, the monstrous, misshapen garden colossus lie we’re referring to is subscribed to by most of the U.S., has stopped and slowed climate action far more than outright denial, and keeps growing and growing. Every day this deception whispers seductively in the ears of mankind: “global warming is real but not urgent… Keep doing what you’re doing.”
Less embarrassing than “climate change is a Chinese hoax,” but every bit as unscientific and ridiculous, it is the preferred lie of the ruling class, mainstream news media, and corporations.
Sir David King—former science advisor to the United Kingdom, professor at Oxford and then Cambridge, winner of too many awards to list and as establishment as they come—was quoted as saying that what we do over the next three to four years will determine the fate of humankind.
He said this… in 2021.
Like all grand lies, “we have more time” takes many different forms, often focus-grouped. There are the lofty-sounding promises to reach “Net-zero emissions by 2050,” as if 24 years from now was soon enough. There are the queries of “What’s your carbon footprint?,” as if individual people with plastic bags or straws were the problem and not gigantic multinational corporations. There’s the accusation that anyone who expresses urgency is a “doomer.” There are those who treat climate as an abstraction to win political campaigns, first arguing that the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act was a victory despite doing nowhere near enough to address the scale of climate collapse, and more recently that Democrats should just stop talking about climate and focus on more “winnable” issues. Most damaging and common of all, there are those who simply don’t mention it.
All of these distortions have robbed us of the most critical element people need to understand a threat and adjust their actions accordingly: context.
And make no mistake, when it comes to how much time we have, the data and the geological record are crystal clear.
For some badly-needed context, the last three years, likely for the first time in over 100,000 years, have averaged above the Paris Accords’ “do not cross” 1.5 degrees celsius planetary warming. Only ten years ago, that was considered catastrophic, but now mainstream news tells us it’s just a number.
Let’s do the context thing again: 2C will mean we have completely left the stable climate period known as the Holocene. This is the 11,000-year-old era that has given us large-scale crop and livestock agriculture, which gave us cities, written language, modern science and medicine, and warm beds and showers.
Before that, for hundreds of thousands of years in the Pleistocene era, humans (and our hominid ancestors) spent most of their time running from drought, fires, floods, extreme cold and heat, predators, and each other.
The population was likely no more than a few million people spread across the whole planet. At one point we may have almost gone extinct, with just 10,000 Homo sapiens clinging to life. But after the advent of the Holocene and its remarkably stable climate, in only 100 centuries the world population has risen to 8 billion.
That is what we stand to lose. In fact, if our institutions, news and elected officials continue to feed and water the oil company-conceived mega-falsehood that climate breakdown is something just “our great-grandkids need to worry about,” human civilization as we know it will collapse and billions could die. And we’re not talking about the far distant future. We are talking about collapse within years, not centuries. For real.
This is right around the corner. A joint study by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter suggests that a 2C temperature increase by 2050—which we are hurtling towards, with no plans of slowing down—could result in two billion deaths. And that is virtually the best-case scenario, as temperature rise predictions have worsened and put 1.5C of warming out of reach. According to the United Nations, in order to limit warming to 2C, we would need “emissions to drop around 35 per cent by 2035.” Even if “current national commitments” were fully implemented they “would cut emissions only 12 to 15 per cent by that date.”
The other scenario, which scientists now say “recent data aligns more closely with,” is 3C of warming. At that level, the Exeter authors warn of up to 4 billion deaths. Four billion. That is half the planet. In 26 years or less. Even for those lucky enough to survive the worst weather events, life as we know it would cease to exist due to war, involuntary mass migration, and “catastrophic mortality events from disease, malnutrition, thirst and conflict.” According to the lead author of the report, there is no realistic plan in place to avoid this scenario.
How effective and finely tuned is this civilization-killing lie? Recently, out of curiosity, I asked the people at my nonprofit media studio, Yellow Dot, to create a graph with two data points: mentions of climate on U.S. broadcast news and recent spiking global warming numbers. And this is what they sent me:
One look at the near perfect correlatory X at the center of this graph, and it is clear something about humankind and western civilization is profoundly and deeply broken. The revelation hit me as almost biological in its clarity: as a species, we are behaving like a pod of dolphins beaching themselves because some kind of brain parasite disrupted their echolocation. Our ability to share knowledge and understand the situation we’re in has become utterly compromised, and deadly.
If so many people weren’t dying and going to die, it would almost be impressive. The lie and the financial markets, corporations, and billionaires that suckle on it have created a vast, highly sensitive information system over the decades, consisting of careerists, company men, and people who fear for their jobs. That system has so internalized big capital’s desires that it nearly instantly responds to any threat to big capital’s hegemony. And remember, by “threats” we are referring to the reality of billions of deaths.
Lately, as extreme weather goes into uncharted territory, broadcast and much of online and print news has increasingly been framing each freakish weather disaster as a one-off event disconnected from one of the fastest and most deadly shifts in Earth’s history.
For example, take this clip from an NBC news report two weeks ago, about tornadoes striking New York City. It’s remarkable for how it paints a picture of the scale of the crisis we’re facing, without ever mentioning what the crisis is. And there are thousands of news pieces just like it:
Pieces like this put millions of people in active danger by robbing them of the key information they need to adjust their personal risk assessment. Namely, that because oil companies are flooding the planet with heat trapping gases, our environment is getting more and more dangerous every day.
The most recent study of the earth energy imbalance or EEI—the difference between the heat the Earth absorbs from the Sun, and the amount it sends back out into space—shows12 Hiroshima bombs of heat being trapped by greenhouse gases every single second of every day. As recently as 2020, it was only 5 or 6 atomic bombs’ worth. That’s how fast the crisis is accelerating, but you’d never know it by watching the TV news.
It’s one thing to warn your teen daughter who is going into the city for the weekend not to take a ride from a stranger, and entirely another to fail to mention that the city she’s going to is hosting a serial killer convention.
At this exact moment, oceans are hotter than they’ve ever been since record-keeping began, and air temperatures on average are warmer than they’ve been in around 100,000 years. We refer to humans of the Pleistocene as Hunter Gatherers and not farmers, fishermen, influencers or IT consultants for a reason. Good luck taking corn to market in 135 degree Fahrenheit heat while dodging dry lightning with a saber-toothed tiger stalking you.
Back in 2015, the number chosen for preserving the Holocene and avoiding at least a billion people starving, dying in extreme heat, or in storms or fires was set at 1.5 degrees Celsius, through a mixture of science and political considerations, formalized in the Paris Climate Accord.
We are, once again for the people in the back, averaging over that number for the past three years. And never mind that several renowned scientists, like Michael Mann, think even 1.2C of warming should have been a do-not-cross line.
Still have doubts? If you do, I don’t blame you. We live in a consumer culture hammering us daily with triggering political proclamations, sales pitches, and clickbait designed to spike engagement responses in the brain. “Immigrants are coming for your way of life!” “This new SUV is the best ever!” “Great White Shark Eats Porn Star!” Most of it is misleading, in one way or another, so there’s a natural tendency to assume that “Planet about to boil!” might be too.
But Big Oil and its PR agencies know this, and they’ve weaponized the healthy skepticism we’ve developed as a survival mechanism against those voices speaking the truth about the urgent state of the climate.
After all, who are you going to believe? The New York Times, an outlet famous for downplaying climate urgency, or some weird scientist saying crazy things? Even when a profession famous for dead-eyed, bottom-line risk assessment like insurance actuaries releases a statement about how serious the situation is, corporate news media turns it into what people used to call a “below the fold story,” framing it as just another minor environmental item—not headline news.
In service of the Great Lie, the government of the United Kingdom even tried to bury a climate report from its own intelligence agency before it was leaked. To my knowledge there aren’t many spies being called tree huggers, unless they’re undercover of course. But the MI5 and MI6 are clear-eyed about the danger that’s coming. The report warned that “global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity.”
No one wants to eat a raw pumpkin. It looks like a Dr. Seuss character’s brain, is full of seeds, and has no real taste. But like with any good lie, when the right sugar, spices, a buttery crust, and time in the oven is added, pumpkin pie becomes a cherished classic.
The same thing happens with the climate lie. The financial markets, massive oil companies, the banks that finance them, the travel industry, car companies, your career and job security, the people you’re having dinner with who don’t want to be bummed out, all of these incentives and forces don’t want you to know you are eating a big, weird gourd.
And as long as we go with their mendacious flow, hundreds of millions, and then billions will die well before “Net Zero by 2050” or “our great grandkids’ future” arrive. Because we are out of time. And we need to get to work immediately. There are a million things to do.
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LEAGUE CITY, Texas (KTRK) — League City Animal Care is asking for the public’s help in gathering information on a cat that appears to be painted or dyed red.
A cat seen around the community has generated buzz on social media, and League City Animal Care is working to safely trap the fur baby and get it the proper care it needs.
Images shared by League City Animal Care show a cat that appears to be painted or dyed red.League City Animal Care
Images appear to show the cat was painted or dyed in some way; the cat’s gray fur can be seen peeking through bright red splotches.
Officials are not asking the public to trap the cat, but they are asking those who have seen the cat recently to send them a direct message through social media with the exact time and location of the cat’s last sighting.
Officials in League City are urging residents who spot a cat that appears to be painted or dyed red not to trap it, but to contact them.League City Animal Care
Officials are also asking the public not to feed the cat or approach it, as it may make trapping efforts by city workers more difficult.
Law enforcement has not announced an active investigation or any potential charges of animal cruelty at the moment.
A cat that appears to be painted or dyed red is creating buzz around League City. Officials are seeking the public’s help with information.League City Animal Care
Exposing the Big Game 