Killing the deer and the messenger
Monday, October 12, 2015
By: Wendy Welch

A statement on the report of City Council members questioning HSHV's contract with the City

You may have read the recent M-Live article on some Ann Arbor City Council members questioning the City’s contract with HSHV due to our opposition of the deer cull.

We’re dismayed by this threat of retaliation. Our mission is to support all animals in our community through providing award-winning services to all of Washtenaw County. In addition to core services, we offer—at no expense to the City—safe harbor for pets of victims of domestic violence and house fires, free pet food assistance, medical care assistance, low-cost vaccines and spay/neuter surgeries. No City dollars are being used on advocacy; efforts toward educating the public on this issue are funded solely by specific donors concerned about the deer in Ann Arbor.

According to the article, Council Members are questioning our ethics. We are in full compliance with the code of ethics of national animal welfare groups and nonprofit associations; in fact, to not speak on behalf of animals due to a separate financial/service agreement would be unethical.

As a nonprofit that serves the public, we are committed to transparency, and if we have offered any misinformation we would appreciate the chance to correct it. We believe the truth is all that is needed to make the case that this is a wasteful, ineffective policy. (Our website StopTheShoot.org has a prominent button asking for improvements—as yet, we have received only things to add to it.)

Of course, HSHV is not the sole voice in this cause, and suggestions by some Council Members that HSHV is to blame for all communication expressed over their controversial decision is highly disrespectful to the other independent organizations and thousands of individuals concerned about Council’s decision to use taxpayer money to kill healthy deer. One of those groups, the Global Conservation Group, collected 14,000 online signatures opposing the cull.

We believe misinformation is being spread about the threats of deer in the community in order to justify killing them. According to public health officials, there haven't been any cases of locally contracted Lyme disease, and Washtenaw County is not currently at risk. Police reports show the rate of deer-vehicle collisions in Ann Arbor has been declining. An aerial survey conducted by the city this past year found 168 deer in areas in and around the city. The group of concerned citizens seeking a cull asserted Ann Arbor had over 1,500 deer and wanted to kill 250 of them. When data returned showing 168 deer, they revised the number to cull, but insisted in their “recommendations and expectations” to the City that a cull was the only acceptable solution.

Given that the Ann Arbor-specific data provided by the City indicate that Ann Arbor has neither an emergency situation nor an over population of deer, we’re perplexed that City Council has chosen to cull before trying any other solution to address these citizens’ needs. Though the handful of staff who have volunteered evenings and weekends, working with many other concerned volunteers, Board members, and residents on this, would prefer to spend their time on other matters, it is our obligation to provide public education and advocacy when we believe animals are being unfairly targeted and a poor policy decision has been made.

City Council members have also expressed fatigue over the discussion of deer, and we can only hope that this is a sign that they, too, believe City resources should be directed to more productive matters.