My concern is for the humans living in Solon. Giving some random person permission to start shoting in a residential are is not an intelligent idea. Again we live in a residential area, not a rural area. This activity is to dangerous for our children, pets and ourselves. We are inviting accidents by letting random people shot near our homes.

Solon's reputation is continuing to plummet. We are the butt of jokes and referred to as slaughterville and more. Residents are being duped and ripped off. The failed deer mismgmt plan is merely a way to get hunting started in our backyards. In fact that is always what it's been about. This is about behind closed doors, secret meetings between the Division of Wildlife, aka state-run hunting club, our irresponsible leaders and hunters. The tides are turning. OH residents are no longer accepting arrows and bullets in our backyards. Please do not wait for others to do something fellow Solonites. VOTE YES on Issue 94. Let's hold our leaders to a higher standard and continue to be a top suburb.

Since hunting causes the reproduction rates of a deer population to double or triple, hunting is not a solution to a problem, but a commitment to a permanent problem!
Also, a person commits the crime of cruelty to animals if the person tortures or kills a living animal. Killing wildlife is just as WRONG as killing a dog or cat.

The first three comments are totally irrational. The hunting will be done at Grantwood and other open, nonpopulated areas. Letting deer starve is more cruel than hunting. Except for the cost, the culling done before was a win, win situation. It was professionally handled and the meat went to food kitchens to feed the poor. I trust our city officials to make sure that the hunting is done in a responsible way.

Talk about irrational. When was the last time you saw a starving deer in Solon ? Most people say they rarely see any deer. This starving deer nonsense is beyond belief. If I shot your dog or cat and fed it to a hungry person, does that make it alright with you ? If we're going to be irrational, we might as well be consistent.

The first three comments are the most uneducated statements I have ever read in relation to urban hunting. Hunting with a bow in a rural, approved area is safe and has been proven to reduce auto accidents and damage to property here in Iowa. I guess you would rather run the risk of harming your children and yourself in a deer-auto collision than have a authorized bowhunter thinning your herd and using the venision to either feed his own family or the homeless. The person that indicates hunting causes the reproduction rated of deer populations to double or triple is just completely misinformed or more likely is just an anti-hunter. Killing wildlife is part of the circle of life, sorry Barbara but in the case you are the one who is completely off base and WRONG.

Hunting may in fact tend to raise animal populations.

The idea is that when animals are not hunted, growth is balanced by natural mortality and that the average growth rate of a population at its carrying capacity is zero.

Hunting reduces the population size in the short term, but the reduction results in an increase in the growth rate of the population. This increase in growth rate is brought about because of higher birth rates and lower death rates resulting from decreased competition for resources.

This increased growth rate provides a surplus of animals beyond the number required to replace the population, and thus populations may actually increase.

Atta boy Steve. Thank you for exposing the mentality of a true hunter. Couldn't have done a better job myself.

of all types of hunting, bow hunting is the most cruel method because the wounding rate is about 55%, meaning that for every 100 arrow-shot deer, 55 stagger around with arrows imbedded in a non-vital area, for days, weeks, even months before they die. Deer die slowly and painfully, after being shot by a bowhunter.
A buck wounded by the arrow from a hunter and not retrieved by the hunter died outside my house.

So many of my friends have had arrows in their homes. My own daughter had one next to her garage door. She still has it and she was upset to find it on her property.

, "Preliminary Archery Survey Report" Montana Dept. of Fish Wildlife and Parks reports 51% wounding; "Archery Wounding Loss in Texas" Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (51% wounded); "Deer Hunting Retrieval Rates" Michigan Pittman-Robertson Report, Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources (58% wounded); "Effects of Compound Bow U se on Hunter Success and Crippling Rates in Iowa" Wildlife Society Bulletin (49% wounded); "Bow hunting for Deer in Vermont: Some Characteristics of the Hunters, the Hunt, and the Harvest" Vermont Fish and Game Department (63% wounded). The average wounding rate from all 22 reports is 55%.

Hunters & other bullies hide behind euphemisms, behind misrepresentations, behind mislabeling, and behind a host of other things. Why is that our society accepts hunting as a passtime or for any other reason? "Both the pain of the hunted and the pleasure of the hunter should equally concern us morally. Both constitute an offence which is so grave and so deep that abolition is the only moral course open to us." states Rev. Andrew Linzey (author of Why Animal Suffering Matters & Animal Gospel.)

Hunting for population reduction is another myth. These misrepresentations only serve the murderers so they can have a fresh amount of individuals to victimize & kill the next season--haven't you heard of the rebound effect?

The "rebound effect" has been an accepted theory for many years . Unfortunatly, our wildlife officials and most hunters prefer to live in the dark ages because it suits their need to justify the slaughter. If you do not accept this theory then how do you explain the fact that for the last FORTY years, the ODNR has reported record deer "harvests" followed annually by record populations. I think a grade school kid could probably figure this out.

Deer should not be the outcasts of our society and excluded from moral concern, rational thinking & compassion no more than our dog or cat members of our family or the disabled or our very children. It is absolutely irrational to include some and excude others. Discrimination is a manifestation of violence. Not only is extreme violence against animals sanctioned by the legal structure of society and accepted almost without question by most people, but in some kind of bizarre confusion, it is actually promoted, encouraged, and even celebrated as in hunting, rodeos, eating meat, etc. This is true to such a degree that, when an individual chooses to reject violence against animals, and makes a personal commitment to provide for themselves without participating in this carnage such as being vegan or to protest hunting (jews don't hunt, Buddhists don't hunt, those of the Jain religion don't hunt) that person does so at the risk of being critized.

I think we must all understand that when it comes to hunting/ killing animals there will be strong emotions on both sides. However, we must also recognize that strong emotions not based on fact should not be mistaken for rational logic. I have yet to see any studies proving that hunting will increase animal population or has been shown to have no effect on car accidents. I would also urge those concerned with the safety of Solon residents to take a closer look at bow hunting. It’s important to distinguish the difference between the trajectory of an arrow and that of a bullet as well as the history of bow-hunting related accidents in any setting. As a Solon resident I am curious to know where the individuals live that insist we do not have deer overpopulation. I’m near the high school and have HERDS of deer in my yard daily. This is not a particularly rural area of Solon. The deer have managed to eat the contents of my garden along with any shrubs, flowers and hosta’s I have throughout the yard. I believe you’d also be hard-pressed to find many residents who haven’t driven past a dead deer on one of the streets. Last year I made several calls to the city regarding deer that were frequenting my yard and were seriously wounded (presumably by an automobile). I am a lover of animals… all animals, but I also understand that we must be rational when discussing “animal rights” and the way in which we manage these issues in our neighborhoods.

John

Adam has perfectly explained the deer biology known as Compensatory Rebound Effect. The Ohio Division of Wildlife states that it manages optimum deer population levels on a county basis, and there are 127 wildlife management areas throughout the state. Part of maintaining or growing deer populations is habitat manipulation by planting food plots, controlled burns and clear cutting. Farmers are happy to cooperate if they receive subsidies to plant specific crops for deer. It is all about propagating deer to maximize hunting opportunities and sell more hunting licenses. There is no effort to control deer populations naturally. On the subject of the donation of venison which such groups as Farmers & Hunters for the Hungry and Sportsmen Against Hunger promote. Deer are eviscerated in the woods using dirty knives in less than sterile circumstances. Lead bullets increase the incidence of lead contamination, of particular danger to pregnant women or those with compromised immune systems, those who might consume food from a food pantry or homeless shelter. Deer may also be afflicted with Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), and Tuberculosis. Hunters pat themselves on the back for donating venison also know that it is not USDA inspected. Would you eat it?

Bowhunting belongs back in the middle ages; it is the worst of blood sports, and banned in many European countries for good reason: It is considered to be too cruel.
Concerns about in juries to man and berast are also valid; there are quite a few reported cases of pets being shot and/or killed by bowhunters, also included are persons (hunters and not) - all one has to do is let one's fingers do the googling!

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=22&gs_id=2n&xhr=t&q=Hunter+killed+by+arrow&qe=SHVudGVyIGtpbGxlZCBieSBhcnJvdw&qesig=2_5C0YxSEAB4m4mzhk80yA&pkc=AFgZ2tmJyjqN9rigit3idjWqoaomuxtv0ZvhdQVcDZDj4QMm8yWcg4wxyFq84Zyfuq3NehH9JeF3FvfyPo38aUkFRP4tc0yKWQ&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=Hunter+killed+by+arrow&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=243423c6f499f635&biw=1024&bih=797
AND
http://www.safebackyards.com/Accidents.htm (includes photos of pets)

Unfortunately, many more cases go unreported since arrows are not required to bear identifying marks, making the search for hunters who were responsible next to impossible!

Another issue is police activity. All lethal activity requires significant police support and overtime expenditures. Can we really afford to have our police baby sit hunters and chase wounded deer on private property when we have rising serious crime? Vote YES on 94 to keep our police engaged with 2 legged criminals.

The survey question prompt should actually read, "Do you believe the State of Ohio Division of WildDeath should be allowed to continue deceiving the vast majority of residents by perpetuating the myth that killing deeer -- or any wildlife, for that matter -- actually helps control them? Further do you believe the State Div. of WildDeath should be allowed to continue catering the seven percent of the state's population that hunts, and continue to collect the majority of its annual revenue from hunting?" If so, "Are you willing to pay the tens of millions of dollars out of your own pockets to fund the state division of wilddeath?"

And another thing to add to the survey prompt, the way it should read: "Do you believe it's morally, ethically, legally right for the state to knowingly profit off 'compensatory rebound effect' perpetuated by said killing of deer?" And, "Do you believe it is acceptable for the state division of wilddeath to continue its archaic practices of catering to those with vested interests in hunting, such as hunters, hunting retailers, the Ohio Division of Wilddeath itself, and the Pittman-Robertson Act that gets hefty tax kickbacks from hunting license/permit sales?"

One last thought re: the way the prompt should read, "Do you believe people's freedoms -- i.e. hunting, smoking in public or from cars that trails back to other drivers behind you, texting while driving, or any other Neanderthal behavior -- should take precedence over every other living creature, including the majority of other humans', rights?"

Thanks Lucy, you really opened my eyes. Good luck hunters. Thank goodness people like Lucy live in Ohio.

I hope that all those gentle minds who seem to be so concerned about starving deer, who feel that killing them is the only answer, would think for just one moment about what they’re saying: “Let’s kill the deer to save them from starvation” – doesn’t that just blow your mind? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

There is such a thing as “biological carrying capacity”, which means that deer will NOT reproduce to the point where there is not available browse for them. However, hunting does spur reproduction, without taking into consideration browse availability.

Leave the deer alone, Mother Nature is much better at controlling populations naturally than state wildlife agencies who care only about providing a good “crop” to their clients (hunters) to “harvest”, who also purchase hunting licenses to pay their salaries!

Hunters chase deer into roadways, adding to more car collisions, always more during hunting season than any other time (according to insurance companies). Slow down, put away your cell phone, stop texting, and keep your eye on the road – if you see one deer at the side of a road, remember that there will most likely be another to follow.

I SUPPORT BANNING Hunting in Solon. There are HUMANE ways to control deer-darting w/birth control or reintroduction of NATURAL predators for example. As for cars, blame hunters-deer are running for their lives away from hunters. BAN HUNTING!

Just because a butcher is an approved USDA butcher has nothing to do with his ability to test the meat for parasites, bacteria, past unsanitary handling, and pesticides or herbicides or lead or Chronic Wasting Disease, etc. It only means that his facility is clean enough. And, even though EHD is not believed to be transmissible to humans, secondary infections may take advantage of the weakened condition of the animal making it unfit for human consumption.

For the record, to state that we have record deer populations because of fewer hunters and restricted access is blatantly false and certainly wouldn't explain the record numbers of deer slaughtered every year.If your going to debate an issue , at least try to be factual instead of just throwing out garbage . It makes the hunters viewpoint appear to be rather pathetic.

I would assume that rational and logic should play into this. When coyote ,blackbear. wolves and mountain lion move in to tap on deer smorgasbord Pumpkin Pie might be on the menu .I wonder if all these DEER HUGGERS will just sit and watch nature take its course as it may with deer or human on the menu!!!!!!

Yeah, that's real rational. The only wolves and mountain lions we have are the ones idiots keep as pets. Coyotes and bears mainly take the sick or deceased . So whats your point? I suppose the deer are gonna eat us now.

Steve (if that is your real name), why don't you include your full name? Afraid of anti-hunters? People, especially controlling men, LOVE to use the triple threat: "you're stupid," "you're ugly," "you're crazy" to control others, esp women. In one of your other comments, you said the first three comments are the most uneducated . . ." Well. Steve, chalk one up for "stupid." Waiting now for you to resort to "crazy" or "ugly." You take for granted that animal rights activists are uneducated? I know more about deer and other wildlife biology than the paid prostitutes the Division of WildDeath sends out to maintain its annual revenue in the form of heinous crimes against nature. You are being foolish; you will never win this argument. Never. You are so convinced that you are right. Don't forget that "Pride goeth before the fall." You cannot claim to be open minded unless you give full weight to your opponent. You'd never last in a court of law because you fail to acknowledge the counterargument. Did you know that compensatory rebound effect -- a phenomenon not denied by Ohio Div. of WildDeath -- also includes younger and younger does conceiving, and not only more multiple births? CRE is a fact not refuted, not even by the bloody state agencies themselves! You are in denial. Everytime you have killed a deer or other animal, you've told yourself the mantra over and over again. What if you were to stop and feel the full weight of the counterargument? Too much 4 U to bear?

What's the beef with emotion? Is it women who hunt, who rape, who commit murder as much as men? Is it women who go on shooting sprees and kill people. Women who are violent? I've had it up to HERE with people poo-pooing emotions. Emotions are a good thing. They are a check-and-balance of the conscience. Only immature males don't know that. Geeze, give me a break. This is so pedestrian. So broken record. So boring. Get off the "emotions are bad" thing. Emotions are half of the processing of all information on which we make decisions. This goes along with the "stupid, crazy, ugly" syndrome. Lastly, if we didn't feel sadness, grief, pain, suffering, agony, shock, horror, outrage, fury or a sense of wanting to protect the innocent from harm, there would be no you and I, no Internet platform on which to argue. I have had it with immature people balking at emotions. Get the h**l over it.

So SOLON are you going to get it when a coyote drags a toddler off. Then it will be OK to "KILL" animals that would be acting as it should in the wild. You cant have it both ways!.

A coyote is not as likely to drag off a toddler as a man, Dave. By the way, an ex-hunter wrote Even today we abuse our fellow humans through boxing, wrestling and other cruel sports. How can the perpetrators of cruelty among us be expected to respect animals when they do not even respect humans? And, as Lucy said, "Emotions are a good thing. They are a check-and-balance of the conscience."

The ex-hunter also wrote: Hunting is a one-sided game with only one winner—human beings. This is why hunters refer to birds and animals as “game”. When the hunter has hunted down and killed an animal, he has “won” the game. More often than not, the creature is killed for pleasure instead of for food. A certain sadistic pleasure is derived by killing another creature. When a human kills an animal the act fuels his ego: he has mastered the creature by taking its life.

If only what you are saying would be true. And, yes, hunters were responsible for restoring wildlife populations. And yes, I love deer, and that is why I hate to see them killed. I feel the same way about them as I do about cats and dogs. Killing them is Animal Cruelty. Deer live in herds and want to be with each other, just like most families of humans.

DNR knows about Compennsatory Rebound Effect and use it to their advantage for more fawn birth thus larger deer herd size and you can see their main interest in the buck fawns.

“By keeping the deer population below the carrying capacity of the available habitat, more forage (nutrition) is available per deer. Thus, does are healthier, reproductive success is higher and more does are able to carry two fawns. Ironically, this can result in a greater deer harvest each year. Depending on the relationship of the population and the carrying capacity, an „optimum sustained yield‟ can be achieved where a relatively high reproductive rate allows an abundant harvest each fall. With high-quality habitat and increased nutrition, the percentage of
doe fawns that breed their first fall increases (sometimes up to 25 percent). Also, a higher percentage of yearling does produce two fawns instead of one. Because fawns are born at approximately a 1:1 sex ratio, more bucks may be born each year. Therefore, in some areas, you actually can increase the number of bucks born by shooting more does.” “Quality Deer Management: Guidelines for Implementation,” 6. Agricultural Extension Service, The University of Tennessee. http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications/pbfiles/pb1643.pdf (last accessed November 2008)

Raise you hands, I want to know how many if given the chances to have birth control used on your coward selves or die with an arrow, names like "grim reapers", http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv4/tinkerbell47_2009/WAC4.jpg "rage", "stinger" would choose. Please do not lie because we know sport hunters are synonymous with lies. So swear on the God above, for if you lie you burn in eternal hell, you choose the arrow into your gut or lung or a contraception that will do you coward psychopath no harm and can live out a long natural life. Although what you have done already may not make much of a difference, maybe Lucifer has a spot waiting for you already. So then, what will be the choice?

The level of ignorance regarding Deer population dynamics found here is absolutely astounding. Allowing "hunting" to take place will reduce SAFELY, the deer population in your town.

The level of a lack of basic education found here is equally astounding. You people should be ashamed of yourselves.

Once, I saw a documentary on TV, in which the scientists found UNEQUIVOCAL evidence of humans branching off at one point, before homo sapiens took over. Guess what? All the predominantly/solely meat eaters died off because their diets weren't diverse enough. Bet you meat eaters didn't know that vegans live 15 years longer, and don't suffer ANY of the major diseases now killing so many. Betcha didn't know that our teeth have evolved to chew grain, and NOT meat. Betcha didn't know that it was the Neanderthals that consumed mostly, if not all, meat, and that it was Neanderthal that couldn't cut the mustard and adapt. Ha ha!

One more thought: killing deer in the name of the environment is a highly misguided, shortsighted and limited-in-scope take on the whole thing. For instance, it is NONnative earthworms that compact soils and make it imposible for understory to grow; in fact, our own equally hypocritical Cuyahoga Valley National Park funded a study that PROVED that deer droppings actually help fertilize understory soils; how ironic. You need to stop and think about the facts here. Facts are facts. Even if you have to hear about them from animal activists. Would you agree with "authorities" like the gov't or divisions of wildlife or hunters, etc. if it was them instead who came forward with all the same evidence. You twist facts. Twist. Twist. Twist.

I don't care, all I can say is that anyone who can shoot and kill another living creature should not be reasoned with. There is no reasoning with you killers.

Well, since you hypocrites all seem to think hunting in your community is so bad, capture and ship the deer to Pennsylvania where the deer herd has been mismanaged to the point of lunacy. As for the comments about our teeth, get your facts straight, we are omnivores, our front teeth are sharp to cut through meat, and our back teeth are blunt for eating plants. Get off your high horse, just because the plants you eat don't scream when you cut them doesn't mean you are killing a living organism. Also, earthworms break up and fertilize soil, not compact it moron.

The funding for state agencies is corrupted absolutely by focusing on killing license funding. There is no "saving" license, so the state agencies just focus on farming the wild for maximum killing "opportunities". They manipulate wild populations by killing out top predators as trophy, trapping out mid-range predators to overproduce ground nesting birds for MORE killing and then manipulating deer herds by killing bucks (again, for trophy and fun) to leave more does to do survival reproduction and give more fawns for the next slaughter. We can talk about this all year for decades but until we ORGANIZE POLITICALLY TO FORCE STATE AND FED AGENCIES TO DO GENERAL PUBLIC FUNDING and give us a say - just more yammer.

Sirhuntsalot - you are no "sir". You are either deluded or lying. I was on the sole (hunter/trapper) advisory to the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources for three years and have been an activist for living wildlife since then. Claiming that deer "need to be managed" by killing is the biggest lie that overlays the other lies of the killing brokerages that are controlled for killing our wildlife - our state agencies. Deer are farmed in high numbers and then the spin is that "Oh - we NEED hunters to kill them for the safety of the public and to keep the numbers DOWN." What crap. By killing bucks (the preferred trophy), lots of does are left to have lots of fawns for the next crop. This is COMMON knowledge - that by manipulating "earn a buck" (killing does and fawns before killing a buck) the state can keep numbers higher or lower. If the numbers of deer get "too low" (less deer car collisions - less killing for hunters' zeal for kill more more more), then the agencies provide more killing by dropping earn a buck and killing bucks. I have a bow hunter whose stand is on the boundary of my property line. He has no woods so kills off of my woods. He called me last Saturday at dark to say he had put an arrow into a little buck "who must be lying out there dead or injured", so I spent an hour on my land with a flashlight looking for a dead or dying deer when I want to protect them. He never did find the deer but had a good look at my land. Democracy is needed for us.

We need to work at the base of the problem of state agencies being killing brokerages for the elite hunter / trapper control. Get rid of killing licenses as the major internal funding mechanism. Check out the 2006 National Audubon Society survey of Economic Impacts of Wildlife Watching vs. the U.S. Fish and Wildlife survey of hunting economic impacts state by state. You will find that wildlife watchers are the dominant outdoors activity group, growing at 8% per year and doubling in the past decade while hunting numbers decline 1% per year. Wildlife watchers bring 10-40 times the revenue to state and local tax coffers but it is NOT directed to state agencies TIED TO POWER TO DECIDE POLICY. ORGANIZE. The hunters and trappers are organized and have structured our state agencies for their own exclusive control. They have the committees of natural resources in our senate and house at their bidding. Legislators care about being elected and are responsive to even small organized groups. Organize to change funding to general public funding tied to fair representation for the majority who are wildlife WATCHERS, wildlife lovers and wildlife friendly. SAVE OUR WILDLIFE NOW!