Baltimore to start killing deer with sharpshooters to bring population to healthy levels
Some Baltimore City residents are saying no to the city's deer management program. The city says it will begin killing deer with sharpshooters to bring the population down to healthy levels.
City residents said they feel the city should use a less harsh method to solve the overpopulation problem.
Cutting Baltimore's deer population
Baltimore City Rec and Parks officials say deer are overpopulated in the city.
Starting Monday, March 9, sharpshooters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be brought into Baltimore's Leakin Park to reduce the deer population.
"This problem has been going on for decades. We've let it go for far too long," said Shane Boehne, leader of the city's deer management program.
Three parks will be targeted this month, including Leakin Park and Druid Hill Park in Northwest Baltimore, and Herring Park in East Baltimore.
Baltimore officials said that sharpshooting was chosen as the method because it is cost effective and less disruptive to surrounding communities.
"The whole point of sharp shooting is to kill these deer on impact," Boehne said. "We don't want to spook, spook these deer and make them flee the area and go out into residential areas."
How many deer?
The operation will take place at night, and the parks will be closed off to the public to limit public safety risks The goal is to bring the deer population to 20 per square mile, which means more than 100 deer will be targeted at Leakin Park.
"If you're able to bring it down to that 20 deer per square mile, and if you basically go hands off for a little while, you'll have an increase back in the population. So we have to do constant management," Boehne said.
This project starts Monday when Leakin Park will be closed from 4 p.m. until 7 a.m. This work will continue through March 19.
The project will continue to Herring Park and then Druid Hill Park at the end of the month.
The meat harvested from this operation will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank, and is estimated to create 40,000 meals.
Community leaders oppose deer kill plan
Some neighbors in Northwest Baltimore's Windsor Hills community said they don't feel like they were included in the process despite the operation focusing on marginalized communities.
They said they want the city to focus its efforts elsewhere.
"I'm more of one who believes in taking a balanced approach, maybe sharp shooting is a percentage of how we get to the attrition, but maybe there are other modest and milder methods," said Linda Batts, with the Hanlon Improvement Association.
"When we talk about disadvantaged and marginalized communities, we're talking about changing the economic mainstream, eliminating the long standing effects of redlining that have some communities impoverished and without their basic needs, while other communities are living their best lives and have access to goods and services and the economics that make them thrive."
