Deer incidents prompt public safety talk
Sam Fry
HILLSDALE — When Hillsdale resident Dr. Jeff Horton's security system alerted him to a possible break in at his South Broad Street home last week, the last thing he was expecting was a hoofed intruder.
But Horton, who was in California at the time, sent a friend to check out the disturbance. They found a deer had crashed through one of their glass doors and ransacked the house.
"We noticed on our video cameras where there was a broken window," Horton said. "I asked a friend to go in, he went into the house, surprised the deer and then the deer went straight out through the original pane of plate glass on the front of the door."
"He'd been in the house for about a day and a half, and the place was a real mess ... the house is really a mess, there was a lot of feces and urine and broken furniture."
But the worst part wasn't the huge mess the Horton family had to clean up. It's that last week's incident wasn't the first time a deer invaded their home.
In 2007, the Hortons experienced another home invasion from the hoofed mammals, prompting Dr. Horton to go before Hillsdale's City Council and plead with city officials to help manage the city's deer population.
"At that time there was a great discussion about the quantity of deer in the city, and the fact that there was no real restriction of breeding and the herd size in the community," Horton said. "At that time culling was decided on and it was successful. There were no real problems for a while."
On Monday, Horton again urged council to take action, citing the latest disturbance as an example of the danger posed by letting the animals continue to breed and run amok in the city.
"We find ourselves evidently in about the same situation, where the presence of the deer and the quantity of the deer are decimating the vegetation and becoming a danger to the homes and individuals."
Horton wasn't the only one who expressed concern. Diane Miller, a volunteer who devotes time to beautifying the city's Mrs. Stock's Park, said that deer have been a nuisance there too, stripping the bark from young trees and destroying the ground cover.
"There are a lot of deer in this town and they are very destructive in our parks and neighborhoods," Miller said. "I love animals, and I really hate the thought of killing them, but they don't belong in our parks."
Hillsdale's deer problem isn't new. The city has taken steps to cull deer before, and has allowed an archery deer hunt, on city-owned and private property, inside city limits on an annual basis.
However, city officials have limited the number of permits for the lottery hunt to 15, in part to reduce crowding on public lands.
But the latest testimony from residents has once again brought the issue of the city's proliferating deer population to the forefront of council's agenda.
Ward 3 Councilman Bruce Sharp agreed Monday to have Hillsdale's Public Safety Committee weigh the city's options, acknowledging the safety issues posed by deer, both to homeowners and motorists.
"I know what they are talking about, I have deer in my backyard all the time," Sharp said. "They're everywhere … we can look into deer culling again, but there are rules we have to follow that the DNR sets forth … it's something we can look into."
The committee is expected to discuss the issue, but a meeting date has yet to be determined.