And nobody laughed CORRECTED/UPDATED

The deer expert from Cornell, who never stepped foot in Mt. Lebanon, has estimated at tonight's commission discussion session that we have between 700-800 deer PER SQUARE MILE. We need to continue to kill deer in the daylight, but also add killing over bait at night with lights because our deer are smart and believe that it is only safe to come out at night.

We have gone from DeNicola's estimates from last year as 400-600 deer in Mt. Lebanon to...are you ready for this?...Cornell's expert estimates, based on the deer/car collision numbers, almost 5,000 deer in Mt. Lebanon. It doesn't matter that the Cornell guy never stepped foot in Mt. Lebanon. He is an expert. For Mt. Lebanon to have sooo many deer/vehicular collisions, we must have THAT many deer. No mention of pedestrians hit  - many within crosswalks, or bicyclists hit. Or cars clocked at 71 mph on Washington Road. No. No mention of that. We have to have up to 5,000 deer in Mt. Lebanon, not that we have bad drivers. We must continue to kill the deer.     F O R E V E R.

And nobody laughed.

Update Same Night 9:19 PM To put this guy's estimates in perspective, Mt. Lebanon School District publishes something called Third Day Enrollment annually. I looked on the MTLSD website and all I could find was Third Day Enrollment for September 2015. Last year, there were 5,361 children enrolled in the Mt. Lebanon Schools. There isn't a day that goes by when we don't see kids. Seriously, do we see that many deer in a day? I have gone weeks without seeing any deer. 219 deer were killed during the archery/"sharpshooting" seasons. Tony DeNicola left early last March because he ran out of deer to kill. How can anyone take this "expert" seriously?

Correction September 14, 2016 Well, I'm embarrassed. I am watching the discussion that the municipality had last night with Cornell's Paul Curtis. Curtis did not say that we had 700-800 deer per square mile, as I was told last night by a meeting observer. What he said was that we have approximately 700-800 deer in six square miles based on the number of deer/vehicular collisions. He is estimating that we have possibly 400 does dropping two or three fawns a year. He is also estimating 100 additional "immigrating" deer in the area. We need to kill many more deer for at least three or four more years. But don't walk away from it. Do it again and again.

Update September 14, 2016 I finally got around to hearing the citizen comments from last night's meeting. There were two against the deer killing and one for the deer killing. The second resident also heard that there were 700-800 deer per square mile, but none of the commissioners corrected her. I found that interesting. The third resident was commending the commissioners with their decision to move forward with more deer killing. She also pointed out that Professor Curtis "has no vested interest in the Mt. Lebanon program." Well, we now know that isn't accurate since he is a crony of Tony DeNicola.

Paul Curtis guestimates that there are between 700-800 deer in 6.06 square miles plus approximately 100 "immigrants" or transients from other communities. Taking his numbers:

700 / 6.06 = 115.5 deer per sq. mile

800 / 6.06 = 132.0 deer per sq. mile

900 / 6.06 = 148.5 deer per sq. mile

PA Department of Natural Resources, supported by Penn State research, claims there are 30 deer per square mile in Pennsylvania. The 2014 aerial survey indicated that we had 196 deer in 6.06 square miles. The aerial survey results for 2014 are here. This is right in line with the PA Department of Natural Resources numbers. But Tony DeNicola, who pays himself quite well from his "nonprofit" organization for killing deer, dissed the aerial survey.

Imagine going on a walk in Mt. Lebanon. Have you ever seen 148.5 deer per sq. mile? 132.0 deer per sq. mile? Or even 115.5 deer per sq. mile? Certainly this exercise is not as accurate as Paul Curtis', who never stepped foot in Mt. Lebanon, right? I didn't think so.