By BRIAN LEAHY
of The Gazette
Village of Whiting residents who fed deer reported more deer damage to their yards than those who didn't put out feed to attract the large herbivores did, a survey says.
The Whiting deer survey results were released Tuesday, Aug. 24, at a meeting of the Stevens Point Urban Area Deer Management Committee.
Fifteen of the 121 residents who returned the survey said they fed deer, said Committee Chairman Jerry Walters, who is a Whiting trustee.
Of those 15 feeders, 53.8 percent reported unreasonable deer damage to their yards, while 46.2 percent reported tolerable damage. None of the feeders reported negligible damage.
For the residents who didn't feed, 34.4 percent reported negligible deer damage to their yards, 30.2 percent tolerable damage and 35.4 percent unreasonable damage.
Members of the Urban Area Deer Committee had sought passing a uniform ordinance prohibiting feeding deer in the urban area. The village of Whiting enacted a "no feeding" ordinance, but the village of Plover and city of Stevens Point chose not to adopt "no feeding" ordinances.
Village of Plover officials didn't want to have "neighbors turning in neighbors" who were feeding, Plover Village Administrator Dan Mahoney said. Education instead of an ordinance is an alternative way to limit deer feeding.
The no feeding ordinance has had positive results on limiting deer damage in Whiting, Walters said.
"We actually had blooms on plants (this year) that we put in four years ago that we never saw bloom before," Walters said.
Stevens Point and Plover are using bow hunting in limited areas to control the expanding deer yard. Stevens Point has allowed bow hunting on some city-owned lands in recent years, while Plover is offering an experimental bow hunt on large tracts of privately-owned land along the Wisconsin River this year.
Whiting has no large tracts of land to open up to bow hunting, Walters said. Consolidated Papers Inc. and Kimberly-Clark officials have said they don't want to allow public hunting on their property.
"We don't really have anyway to cull the herd," Walters said.
Bringing in a sharpshooter to reduce the herd would cost about $125 per deer, he said.
Of the Whiting residents who didn't feed deer, 33.6 percent supported a public hunt and 32 percent wanted professional sharpshooters, according to the survey. For those who put out feed, 14.3 percent wanted a public hunt, while 7.2 percent supported hiring professional sharpshooters.
Almost 44 percent of the residents who didn't feed had made some investment to control deer. About 23 percent of feeders had made some investment to limit deer.