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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Protesters speak against killing deer

Sandra Shapshay, left, president of Bloomington Advocates for Nonviolent Innovative Deer Stewardship, protests against the deer killing policy in front of Bloomington City Hall on Wednesday.

Some of them dressed up, some of them just held signs, but either way the message was clear — they don’t want deer to be killed by sharp shooters.

Before Wednesday night’s Bloomington City Council meeting, about two dozen protesters gathered in the cold to show their opposition to the city’s policy on deer overpopulation.

“The science at Griffy, kind of iffy,” the protesters chanted.

The issue of the council’s decision to sharp-shoot deer was not officially on the agenda Wednesday night, but Bloomington residents, one after another, spoke at the meeting on the matter.

“There are other ways to control the deer that have not been tried or even attempted,” said Chuck Rogers, a 61-year-old Bloomington resident. “To me it’s just pure barbarism to bait deer and then slaughter them when they come to the bait.”

Some of the protesters were citizens who arriv ed on their own accord and others were part of Bloomington Advocates for Nonviolent Innovative Deer ?Stewardship.

Steve Wagschal, an executive committee member with BANIDS, said he is not confident that the count of the deer population that was previously done was ?accurate.

“I think that they’re killing the deer for absolutely no reason,” Wagschal said. “They have never shown that there is an over-abundance of deer at Griffy Lake Nature Preserve.”

The Joint City of Bloomington-Monroe County Deer Task Force counted the deer population by measuring the amount of deer droppings found around the Griffy Lake area.

Vegetation diversity has been in decline because of the growing deer population — potentially harming the ecosystem around the nature preserve, according to the Deer Task Force’s ?report.

Wagschal proposed an aerial count, which he said he believes to be more ?accurate.

Rogers said he wants to see other ways of controlling the deer population that are more humane and more ?effective.

Though other residents spoke about other issues, the deer issues dominated the meeting.

During the meeting’s two public comment sessions, residents voiced their opinions on the sharp shooting plan — mostly in ?opposition.

Some in opposition made appeals to the council with science, others with an emotional plea.

Many of the calls to find other ways to control the deer population around Griffy Lake were passionate, including two 10-year-old girls who presented a petition signed by 48 people from their school.

Ryan Giles, a 42-year-old Bloomington resident, said he opposed the sharp shooting because it uses taxpayer money.

“I just don’t like the idea of tens of thousands of dollars of tax money going to pay some guys to get up in tree stands and shoot fawns with sharp-shooting assault weapons,” he said.

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