Riflemen working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been slaughtering whitetail deer for more than two weeks on as many as 20 different properties in Southampton Town, according to the federal agency.
A spokesperson from the USDA, Carol Bannerman, confirmed this week that a “cull” effort has been under way in Southampton Town, and that shooters have been hired by the Long Island Farm Bureau to work on “between 10 and 20” properties on the South Fork, she said.
The killing, which is done at night by teams of hunters using bait, night-vision equipment and high-powered rifles with silencers, is being paid for by the Long Island Farm Bureau using state grant money earmarked for pest control on agricultural property.
The Farm Bureau has not responded to any requests for comment on the slaughter since organized opposition to the effort arose over the winter. Farm Bureau President Joe Gergela could not be reached despite several attempts this week.
Opposition to the cull proposal, and a lawsuit filed by one of the groups, halted consideration by East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village of allowing the cull to take place on public lands in their boundaries. When the municipalities set the idea aside, for the time being, many residents thought it meant the cull was off. But private property owners and the USDA are not bound by the local municipalities’ decisions, and several property owners in Southampton and Southold towns went forward with applications to the State Department of Environmental Conservation for nuisance permits.
The DEC has refused to provide any information regarding the permits issued to property owners in Southampton or East Hampton towns. An application to the offices of DEC Commissioner Joe Martens for copies of the permits issued, in accordance with the state Freedom of Information Law, received no response, and a follow-up appeal to the commissioner’s office for the information was not acknowledged.
Ms. Bannerman said that “less than a dozen” teams of shooters were being used on the South Fork specifically. The kill teams work in groups of three, one a shooter, one a spotter, and one driver of the marked U.S. government pickup trucks.
The leader of a residents group organized specifically to oppose the Farm Bureau cull encountered one of the armed teams on a dark street in Sagaponack Village last week, leading to a harassment complaint registered with Town Police by the hunters, though no charge was filed.
“I was coming home on Monday night, about 9:45, and I drove through Sagaponack and, sure enough, coming down Sagg Main Street I noticed a pickup truck stopped on the street just south of the Fosters’ airstrip,” Wendy Chamberlin, co-founder of the Wildlife Coalition of Eastern Long Island, said. “I pulled up next to it and asked what he was doing, and the man said, ‘Working.’ I asked if he was with the USDA, and he said, ‘Yes, Ms. Chamberlin.’ He knew my name.
“I got out of my car and went to the back of the pickup truck, and there was a young man, maybe 18 or 20 years old, with a rifle in his lap with a [noise] suppressor on it,” she continued. “I started shooting pictures and got pretty upset with them. I told them that nobody wanted them here. They said they were going to call the police.”
Indeed, Town Police confirmed the complaint that Ms. Chamberlin was interfering with federal hunting teams and that officers had interviewed Ms. Chamberlin at her Bridgehampton home. No charges were filed.
Ms. Chamberlin said the hunters appeared to be preparing to enter land owned by Cliff and Lee Foster of Foster Farms. The Fosters’ son, Dean, declined to comment this week on whether the USDA teams were working on his family’s land.
Ms. Chamberlin said she and other opponents were shocked to learn that Southampton farmers had decided to proceed with allowing the cull despite the outpouring of opposition from area residents.
Last month, Mr. Foster and Sagaponack farmer Jim Pike said they were considering proceeding with the cull, in hopes of reducing the amount of crop damage they suffer from the burgeoning deer herd on their lands, but said they were questioning whether or not to do it for fear of angering their customers.
When the Farm Bureau first proposed the cull, which has been ongoing in Southold Town for at least three weeks, local farmers said that deer cost them thousands of dollars a year, from already scant profits, in lost crops and damage to their property.
Opponents like Ms. Chamberlin’s group, the East Hampton Group for Wildlife and deer hunters advocacy group formed this winter, Hunters For Deer, have appealed for property owners and state officials to employ relaxed hunting restrictions to encourage a higher take of deer by civilian hunters and the use of chemical contraceptives to thin the herd more gradually.
The Farm Bureau has said that such an approach was impractical and insufficient to address the deer population problem. The Bureau secured a $200,000 grant from the state to fund the herd culling. Originally it had estimated the sharpshooters would be able to kill upward of 1,000 deer in the two months they had planned for the cull. But Mr. Gergela said in an interview in February that the number would more likely be a few hundred.
Ms. Bannerman said on Tuesday that the federal kill teams have made two deliveries of approximately 1,000 pounds of butchered venison meat to a Long Island-based food pantry. She said she did not know the name of the pantry or organization that was taking in the meat, or whether any of the meat was being distributed to East End food pantries.
on Apr 2, 2014