At Tuesday’s Commission meeting during Citizens Comments, I said that Matt Santoni’s article Deer culling program weighed in Mt. Lebanon stated that the USDA was using sharpshooters, where in fact, the USDA hires biologists who are not sharpshooters. I got an email from an outraged reader who said that they are sharpshooters by definition since they were using high powered rifles and are hired to kill deer with as few shots as possible from a distance. I disagree. If I gave a monkey a high powered rifle with a couple of bullets, that does not make him a sharp shooter. The reader went on to say that there are good sharpshooters and bad sharpshooters, which combines contradictory of terms. I decided to look up the definition of sharpshooter. According to Merriam -Webster, a sharpshooter is defined as a proficient marksman. The second definition is a consistently accurate shooter (as in basketball). Thefreedictionary.com defines sharpshooter as 1. One who is highly proficient at shooting and 2. The second military grade of proficiency in the use of rifles and other small arms.
According to page 28 of the safety report http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/Safety_Review/content/Firearms_Report.pdf, one of the problems defined was that Wildlife Services was faced with the possibility of hiring biologists and field employees with little or no firearm experience due to the shortage of sharpshooters. This should be a great concern to our commissioner who is a proponent of deer culling. She felt that we could have a deer culling in parks and not on private property. That is a problem since I reside next to a park. Kristen Linfante suggested using our parks which are not close to homes. I would be curious to know which parks fit that criteria.
I hope the reader doesn't get upset when I make this statement. The article says that the USDA uses night vision goggles. Hate to say it, but I saw this with my own eyes. They use flashlights. Sorry.
Don’t get me wrong. We have a deer problem. Actually, last night, my dog was pushed down the steps and cornered at the bottom of the driveway by a doe who was protecting her newborn fawn. We made an emergency visit to the vet where my dog was treated for cuts and scratches, nothing serious - thank goodness. Two hundred dollars later, I still understand that the deer was doing what mothers do naturally.
This brings us to the Deer Management Town Hall Meeting that will be held on Monday, July 9 at 7 p.m. in the Commission Chambers. All I hear is that something has to be done, but what? Bring your ideas to the special town hall meeting. Please don’t suggest introducing mountain lions to the community. Commissioner Brumfield cracks up every time he hears that option. I agree, not a good option.
9 comments:
Elaine, I hope your dog feels better soon.
Our Commission thinks any perceived deer problem, real or imagined, has been removed thanks to their passage of the deer feeding ordinance.
All the deer have gone to neighboring communites where they don't have a deer feeding ordinance.
What other citizen activities will our nanny Commission regulate next?
David Huston
While the dictionary definition for "sharpshooter" may suffice casually, I recommend the National Rifle Association classification system when defining the term. The NRA knows more about guns and how to gauge shooters than any other organization I can think of; even the military uses NRA scoring when it comes to their own competitions. Here is a portion of the NRA's handbook for high power rifle shooters, which would be applicable, in my opinion, to gauging the skill of anyone hired to shoot deer in Mt. Lebanon:
19. NATIONAL HIGH POWER RIFLE CLASSIFICATION
19.15 Individual Class Averages - Competitors classified or reclassified on the basis of scores fired under
the conditions specified in Rule 19.4, reduced to 10 shot averages, those averages leading to classifications as
shown in Table II or III below:
Table III*
High Power Rifle, Mid-Range, Prone
High Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98.50 and above
Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97.00 - 98.49
Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94.50 - 96.99
Sharpshooter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.00 - 94.49
Marksman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Below 92.00
*I used this table because it represents to most likely scenario of distance and shooter position for shooting deer in an urban setting
I like guns, and I'm not afraid to say so in public. Growing up is a house filled with guns, and with a father who was a competition rifle shooter, I was taught to handle guns at an early age. I was also taught great respect for them. One of the things I learned early on was that guns do not act on their own volition; they are acted upon! The same holds true for bullets. Once fired the trajectory is forward from the barrel, and curved downward due to gravity; but this sometimes changes radically as the result of a deflection. This is something the shooter must take into consideration, given one's surroundings.
Because of my experience with guns I became an excellent shooter; but my father, if he were alive, could probably beat me. However, I think he would agree with me that shooting deer in Mt. Lebanon is a bad idea, even under the best of circumstances.
Is there a "deer problem" here? Yes. Do deer cause accidents? Yes. In fact, deer are the second most dangerous mammal in North America. They are responsible for more than 100 human deaths per year, mostly due to car crashes. The most dangerous mammal in North America? Humans; who in 2010 murdered 14,748 of their fellow humans in the United States alone.
Mr. Gideon, you seem rather knowledgeable about firearms and their proper use.
Do you think it is appropriate for a resident to display rifle ammunition at a public meeting by means of holding it up in his right hand while addressing the Commission from the podium?
David Huston
David, I would like to step in here. I was five feet away from the resident and NEVER felt unsafe or threatened. It was a bullet. Now, if there was an open fire in the commission chambers and the resident threw the bullet into the fire, we would be in danger. There are some heated discussions at times, but never to the point where it turns into flames.
The resident gave his military background and was trying to show how dangerous the deer culling was a few years back.
Elaine
Amen, David. I'm not sure how the commission intends to regulate what people do on their own property just short of having the MLPD start using deer drones. You can try to "prohibit" people from certain actions but the deer will still eat various pants, correct? So what's next, banning any type of planting? It seems, at first glance, ridiculous.
As for the shooting breakdown, Mr. Gideon offers some great information. Given my experience in the Marine Corps (where I shot expert) and later the Army, one might say I have a background with and working knowledge of firearms. And while I have the utmost faith in my shooting ability and that of some people I know, I can't put the same faith in alleged "experts" shooting from the back of a pickup or using flashlights. If I were walking my dog in a local park, even at night, and ran into some stranger toting a rifle I'm not sure my reaction would fall under the definition of civil.
I would encourage people to explore different options and work with the commission to develop an effective yet safe plan. It takes just one errant shot or richochet or even pass-through on an animal at close range to cause injury or death to a resident. The problem is not with people feeding the deer. The problem is people competing with deer for space. That said, I'm reasonably certain there is a rational and practical solution for mitigating some of the problems with Bambi without posing potential dangers to the community.
And David, to answer your question about holding up ammunition, I guess it depends on the context of the display? If it's to explain the size of the round and the potential effect it could have in relation to a smaller caliber, then it's wholly appropriate. If it's solely for the purpose of spreading fear, then I'd say no. Just my opinion.
Mr. Huston:
With respect to the display of ammunition at a Commission meeting; unless the Municipality has a law against it I agree with Mr. Cannon III. In fact, I think Mr. Cannon's total post of 9:48AM is excellent and, if you'll pardon the pun, "on target."
The deer feeding ordinance is a classic example of "feel good" legislation; well intentioned, perhaps, but totally inadequate and inappropriate. The upshot (sorry) of it is that it provides a way for one neighbor to turn in another neighbor over some issue only peripherally related to "feeding deer." Under this legislation I could, if I were so inclined, turn in my neighbor for "feeding deer" because she plants Hostas - a favorite of Bambi.
And the danger of typing on handheld devices is, one sometimes makes spelling errors that aren't obvious. The word in my first paragraph should be pants, not plants...of course, I'm not a zoologist so maybe deer also do eat clothing...
Not to worry, Jim. When we have a goat feeding ordinance, that is when we have to worry about pants. We knew what you meant.
Elaine
I did it again. Plants/pants, whatever..it's Friday. I'm not writing another word.
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