A $6.6 million deer vasectomy program, now in its fifth year, was initially halted for the year amid Parks Department budget cuts due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Shortly after the announcement to halt the program, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was asked how he planned to continue controlling Staten Island’s deer population. Unsure of a course of action, he asked his team to reconsider the decision to cut the vasectomy program, noting he did not want the city to lose progress on a successful program.
Mayor de Blasio will be restoring $700,000 in funding for Staten Island’s costly deer vasectomy program. Deer vasectomies will resume this winter.
While the vasectomy program was still on hold, a group of bipartisan Staten Island elected officials asked the mayor to reconsider his position and work with them and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on bringing a controlled bow hunt to the Island. However, de Blasio remains firm in his opposition to what many see as the next best cost-effective option to decreasing the borough’s roughly 1,555 deer population: a controlled cull.
Directly related to Lyme tweet. Defunding the deer vasectomy program is all well & good, but there still are deer related ecologic devastation, collisions with vehicles & spike in tick borne disease issues. Here’s a bipartisan call for the city to come to the table with us & NYS. pic.twitter.com/jT8BoyLykT
— Jimmy Oddo (@HeyNowJO) July 8, 2020
“As you know there’s been a host of issues, concerns from the state, concerns about the safety of people in surrounding areas,” de Blasio said during a press conference on July 8 when asked why he was opposed to a controlled cull.
Borough President James Oddo has been trying for years to bring a controlled cull to the Island. Unless he felt the vasectomy program was no longer working, de Blasio remains opposed to a cull.
“It is proven to be safe and effective, and we think it is a logical substitute — if we possess the will to confront the problem,” Borough President James Oddo and the group of bipartisan Staten Island elected officials said in a joint letter to the mayor.
You can read the original articles here and here.
