Big-city hunting program helps reduce overpopulation of deer – KansasCity.com

When Joe Cascone started deer hunting, he thought nothing of driving an hour or two to get out of Kansas City.

Today, he stays in big city when he wants to hunt.

Through a program managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation, he bow hunts an island of timber within the city limits, not far from the traffic, subdivisions and activity of urban life.

“I used to be one of those hunters who thought you had to get way out of the city to have a good chance at a deer,” said Cascone, 41, of Kansas City. “I grew up in the inner city, and we never used to see deer.

“But now we see them all the time in greenways and little pockets of timber. It doesn’t take much to hold them.

“I’ve taken nice bucks within 20 minutes of my house, hunting with my bow. It’s unbelievable.”

Cascone is part of a carefully monitored program devised by the city and the Missouri Department of Conservation.

In response to growing deer populations in the city and increased deer-vehicle accidents, the City Council in 2003 passed an ordinance allowing bow hunting in the city under the program.

Private land must be at least five acres to qualify and it must be isolated from houses, roads, and other structures for safety purposes.

Landowners submit requests to the Missouri Department of Conservation, which then has wildlife biologists inspect the property to make sure it meets requirements.

Safety is a priority, and so far there have been no problems reported, said Joe DeBold, urban wildlife biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. And the hunters who participate? Well, they’ve found a hunting paradise right here in the big city.  Click link below for full story!

via Big-city hunting program helps reduce overpopulation of deer – KansasCity.com.

Bowhunting reduces deer in two cities – STLtoday.com

By Stephen Deere

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

01/13/2009

CLARKSON VALLEY — The camouflaged figure climbed a tree in the middle of the subdivision and waited, scanning the hillside for antlers, listening for a hoof snapping a twig.

In the distance, a basketball thumped on the pavement, a car door slammed. Only 50 yards away from the deer stand, the lights on a Christmas tree glowed through the living room window of a $500,000 home.

Hours passed and still, there were no deer.

Lou Salamone has hunted these backyards for the past couple of years and is having days like this more and more — as if he’s a victim of his own success.

“It’s like mission accomplished,” he said.

For a couple of municipalities in west St. Louis County, Salamone and other bowhunters have become an inexpensive solution to the growing conflict between suburban development and wildlife.

Clarkson Valley and Chesterfield have adopted ordinances in recent years allowing bowhunting in residential areas during deer archery season, which begins in mid-September and ends Thursday, to combat an overabundance of deer.

The cities say they are happy with the results so far, even if they can’t pinpoint what effect bowhunting has had on the deer population.  Click link below for full story!

via 01/13/2009 – Bowhunting reduces deer in two cities – STLtoday.com.

Hartford Advocate: News – The Quiet Kill

WhiteTail Solutions thins the herd in the suburbs without waking up the neighborhood

By Nick Keppler

Four deer were lazily hanging out in Joe Tucker’s yard, right along his driveway. They did not gallop away when I pulled in. “That’s part of the problem,” Tucker’s buddy Dan Beyer told me later. “They’ve lost their fear of man as a predator.”

This is why WhiteTail Solutions exists. The company considers its employees “deer management consultants,” and use bows and arrows to hunt their prey.

And this is why the company is most active in the affluent suburbs, areas the state Department of Environmental Protection has deemed troublesome for their abundance of deer and lack of hunters. Ninety-nine percent of their hunts, says Tucker, who co-owns the company with his brother Chris and Beyer, occur in Fairfield County.

Man isn’t much of a predator here. Deer hunting “is not a way of life” along the Gold Coast, says Patricia Sesto, chair of the Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance and director of Environmental Affairs for the Town of Wilton. “People haven’t grown up with it and aren’t educated about it. … It’s just not our pastime.”

Land here has been developed in a way — golf courses and wetlands separating office parks — that leaves open space where deer can eat well and breed plentifully, says Howard Kilpatrick, the DEP’s biologist in charge of deer management.

When the deer population increases, so do Lyme disease, car collisions and ecological damage.

The number of deer per square mile reaches 60 in some parts of Connecticut, says Kilpatrick. While he says it’s difficult to say how many are “too many” for this type of terrain, his educated guess is closer to 10 per square mile.

So, there’s WhiteTail Solutions, a company headed by 40-year-old commercial well-driller Joe Tucker, who runs WhiteTail Solutions from his Oxford home. Click link below for full story!

via Hartford Advocate: News – The Quiet Kill.