Advocates Urge Governor To Sign Bill Banning Hunting Next to Rescue Center

Governor Kathy Hochul has until midnight on Saturday, December 17, to sign a bill prohibiting hunting on state land adjacent to the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays.

Sponsored in the State Legislature by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., and approved by both the Senate and Assembly last summer, the legislation was placed on Hochul’s desk on December 6.

Wildlife advocates are urging her to sign it, especially on the heels of a harrowing incident that occurred earlier this year.

Accustomed to — and upset by — the sound of gunshots from deer hunters ringing out from Henry’s Hollow, state parkland adjacent to the center at Munn’s Pond County Park, one morning last January center staff thought the morning’s fusillade sounded dangerously close.

It was close — and deadly.

Executive Director Virginia Frati raced outside and confronted a gruesome tableau on center property not far from its outbuildings: A deer was shot, its legs flailing in the air, and the hunter standing almost alongside the “no hunting” sign that marks the boundary between the 219-acre state hunting tract and the county land that’s home to the center, as well as an adjacent public walking trail.

Frati dragged the dying animal — a fawn they had rehabilitated and released — to an enclosure, blood spattering the path, her clothes, her glasses. She held the animal as it died.

In ensuing moments, center staff found bullet holes had gone through enclosures, with one landing just 5 feet away from where an employee was toiling.

“I never would have chosen this site if I knew they were going to allow hunting right next door,” Frati said this week.

Suffolk County, which is the center’s landlord, inked a deal allowing hunters to traverse their property to the landlocked hunting grounds. Frati’s been fighting for 13 years to get the agreement annulled, or at least revised to increase the buffer between hunters and rescuers and their patients.

From the county’s parking area, there are two trails: One leads west into the state land, while another heads south to the center. Over the years, staff have found arrows on center land and watched hunters walk through the property, shotguns on their shoulders. More recently, Frati said she found steps drilled into a tree “right on the nature trail” in the county parkland. Hunters would ascend the steps to shoot from the tree stand.

The hunter who shot the deer last winter, Isidoro Scarola Sr., 75, of Islip Terrace, was subsequently charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and Environmental Conservation Law violations.

Frati thought the horrific incident might lead to action. “I thought, ‘Now, it’ll finally stop,’” she said.

The state’s remedy — installing more signs — she said, is “ridiculous.” Scarola was standing right under a sign when he killed the fawn, she said.

Soon after the shooting, wildlife advocates appeared before the Suffolk County Legislature, beseeching lawmakers to annul the agreement. They did not.

County Legislator Bridget Fleming asked officials at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to ban hunting at the site. They did not.

Thiele’s law passed with bipartisan support and went to the governor’s desk for her signature on December 6.

“I’m a little bit worried,” he said this week. Prohibiting hunting on land adjacent to a wildlife rescue center is something the DEC could have done without legislation, “and they didn’t,” Thiele said.

The law is very specific and applies only to that one piece of property, he emphasized. “It’s not pro-hunting, it’s not anti-hunting. It’s pro-safety,” he said.

He predicted Hochul would consult with the DEC, and he said, “That concerns me.” He noted the narrowly drawn local bill received a lot of support from the community and advocates.

In a press release urging the governor to sign the bill, John Di Leonardo, an anthrozoologist and president of Humane Long Island, commented, “Wildlife rehabilitators should not have to work in fear of being shot and killed at Suffolk County’s only wildlife hospital, where patients are recovering after being shot and left to languish by hunters in the first place. Regardless of how one feels about hunting, it is clear that hunting next to a wildlife hospital is wildly inappropriate and Humane Long Island is urging Governor Hochul to protect our friends at Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center without delay.”

This is a 10-day bill because the legislature is still in session and it has already been transmitted to the governor, Thiele explained. She must affirmatively veto the bill. If Hochul fails to act by December 17 at midnight, the bill would become law. “I’ve never seem a bill become law because the governor didn’t act,” the assemblyman said.

If there is a veto, there could be an override, which is also extremely rare and unlikely, Thiele added.

So, if there is a veto, the bill is dead and this two-year legislative term ends on December 31.

“We would have to start from scratch in 2023,” he predicted.