Take Action! Save the Deer of Cayuga Heights

I have been asked to pass this on by a friend in Puerto Rico. I am making no value judgements.

http://animalrights.change.org/actions/view/shot_for_a_tulip_say_no_to_cayuga_heights_nys_deer-killing_plan

Take Action! Save the Deer of Cayuga Heights

BY STEPHANIE ERNST

PUBLISHED AUGUST 19, 2009 @ 10:19PM PT

Inhumane, unnecessary deer-killing programs [sic] are in place or under consideration all across this country. But there are a couple in particular that I'm going to write about in the coming days, including, in this post, a proposed plan in Cayuga Heights, NY.

In the last couple days, some of you have surely noticed the petition on this site asking you to speak out against a terrible deer-killing plan in the village of Cayuga Heights in Ithaca, NY--and against the silencing of public comment by the village trustees, in the face of public opposition
to the plan. The action summary explains that the reason so many deer are slated to be killed and the survivors traumatized [sic] and controlled is that "these human-habituated animals’ appetite for tulips, heirloom tomatoes, and ornamental shrubbery has, in the minds of the current mayor and trustees, created a situation so dire and unacceptable, that action of the most extreme sort is not only justified, but urgently required":

The first phase of their plan involves capturing 30-60 female deer, surgically sterilizing [sic]them, then puncturing their ears with numbered tags and encumbering their necks with radio collars. These are the "lucky" individuals. The intended fate of every other deer in Cayuga Heights,
including pregnant does and fawns, is to be shot dead at bait sites at undisclosed locations and times. This annually performed massacre will be carried out by out-of-town contractors who earn their living exterminating wildlife. . . .