Syracuse Common Council and other city officials are coming up with ways to combat the city’s growing deer population, including creating an advisory committee and holding public meetings on deer management. 

Mayor Ben Walsh is creating a deer and tick advisory board. Greg Loh, director of city initiatives, said at an April 15 council meeting that the board will consist of residents who have expertise in health law and will work to develop plan of action within a 45-day period.

Deer population has been rising in Onondaga County for more than 20 years, said Brian Underwood, a professor of environmental and forest biology at SUNY-ESF. After conducting a census on deer population in 2012, Underwood found that about 200 deer lived in green spaces on Syracuse’s Eastside. The Common Council voted unanimously on April 22 to expand deer management to public properties in Syracuse. 

“Deer population have been moving north at a pretty good clip since the 70s from downstate areas, like the Catskills, and even Pennsylvania,” Underwood said. “They find unoccupied areas and set up shop.”

Fifth District Common Councilor Joe Driscoll, who serves in the Committee on Parks and Recreation, headed a council meeting last week to discuss how to mitigate the effects of the increasing deer population. The city’s proposed 2020 budget allocates $75,000 to “contractual and other expenses” for deer management, which Onondaga County can reimburse.

Underwood said the most effective method of controlling deer population is through culling, or systematic killing. In Syracuse, Underwood said that green areas, such as Le Moyne College and St. Mary’s Cemetery, are good places to start. In this method, deer are baited toward a select area and then shot. 

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Most culling operations cost $10,000 to $20,000 annually. Culling operations are currently in place in Fayetteville, said Travis Glazier, the director of Onondaga County Office of the Environment.

“There’s a lot of other places we’d like to spend (money) as well, such as public education on prevention of tick bites,” said Glazier.

New York state Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter (D-Syracuse) commissioned a survey in 2017 to determine the impact of deer population on the community. Some city residents were worried about the damage that deer can do to landscaping or traffic, according to the survey.

The largest concern among the survey respondents was the disease that deer ticks carry. Hunter’s survey found that 47% of residents were concerned about the spread of Lyme disease from tick bites. The Onondaga County Health Department estimated that, between 2010 and 2016, there were 603 reported cases of Lyme disease in the county. 

Tick-borne diseases are often under-reported, Underwood said. Some ticks can also carry potentially deadly diseases, such as deer tick fever, he added.

“The main problem with tick-borne diseases is that most people aren’t aware they’re carrying it,” said Underwood. “So, they leave it untreated until it starts getting bad.”

Hunter’s survey also found that 89% of respondents wanted action taken against deer herds in their neighborhoods, while 59% supported the culling of deer population by a team of professional sharpshooters.

Underwood said that population control methods other than hunting are not yet viable for Syracuse. Even if the city decides on a culling plan of action this year, it’s unlikely that deer population will drop immediately, and it would likely take a few years for results to be seen, he said. 

Published on April 28, 2019 at 8:47 pm