By Susan Vela
The Cincinnati Enquirer

SHARONVILLE - Hamilton County Park District officials will take lethal measures to curb the damage caused by skyrocketing deer herds.

A three-member board unanimously agreed Thursday to send sharpshooters to kill white-tailed deer in three parks - Shawnee Lookout and Mitchell Memorial forests near Cleves and Miami Whitewater Forest near Harrison - early next year.

Up to 200 deer are grazing on vegetation for every square mile in those parks, roughly 10 times the ideal number.

Park commissioners, meeting at Sharon Woods Park, said sending out marksmen with high-powered, .243-caliber rifles is the safest, most humane and cost-effective means of controlling deer at the three parks, where the animals are threatening wildflowers, young trees and vegetation that smaller animals need for food and nesting.

"Our issue here is not a comfortable one," board president Nancy Hamant said. "All of us feel that our mission is to protect and preserve the wildlife. (But) all we have now is a herd that is out of control."

Beginning in January, specially trained rangers will prowl the three parks almost nightly. Bait will be set for the deer, luring them to areas with earthen backgrounds, such as the base of hills, to minimize problems with stray bullets or ricochets. The venison will be donated to area soup kitchens.

Park officials hope the hunters will bag about 500 deer.

Greater Cincinnati is not alone in coping with growing deer herds. Ohio has an estimated 575,000 deer - up more than 40 percent since 1998. In 2001, there were 31,586 deer-car collisions recorded across the state, about 17 percent more than in 2000. The crashes caused about $63.2 million in damage, insurance officials have said.

State wildlife officials say the problem also is being felt in the city of Cincinnati. Patrons of Mount Airy Forest, a city park, have an almost "100 percent" chance of spotting deer, they said, and the area has seen one of the county's highest rates of deer-car crashes.

"If we do not do anything, there will be no Mount Airy Forest. This park is dying. We cannot afford to have one species dominate," said Gerald Checco, superintendent of Cincinnati's parks.

The Cincinnati Parks Board is considering ways to manage deer herds, and Mr. Checco has advised them that Hamilton County's plan is the best one. The shooting program likely will be tried in other county parks in years to come. Similar efforts in Cleveland and Columbus have required several years to get herds under control.

Before Thursday's vote, several protesters called the shooting plan cruel and genocidal. They urged commissioners to first try birth control and relocation, but those measures, unlike shooting, haven't been approved by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Relocated deer tend to die within the first year following a move, and birth control measures for deer are still in the experimental stages, said Todd Haines of the ODNR's Division of Wildlife.

Still, "you are setting up a dangerous situation," said Jean Girten of the Butler County Humane Association. "We want to encourage our children to be kind and not hurt anyone or anything. You'll have to kill these deer year after year. To me, that's not a good situation."

But park officials defended their decision.

"The future of our forests is in jeopardy," said John Klein, the park district's land manager. "The deer keep chewing up the vegetation - and what they don't eat, they're trampling."

Cincinnati's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has endorsed sending in the marksmen; so have the city of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Nature Center and other organizations.

Connie Brockman of the Nature Center said there might be nothing like seeing a majestic buck, but there's also something special about watching the threatened woodcock, which relies on the parks' grounds for nesting, spiral through the air.

Too many deer, she said, can lead to starvation and disease. Chronic wasting disease, which is related to mad cow disease, causes deer to become emaciated, demonstrate abnormal behavior, lose coordination and die. CWD has infected Wisconsin deer, and a dead deer in northern Illinois recently tested positive.

"It's not the deer's fault that they're overpopulated, (but) we need to make sure that we do what we can," Ms. Brockman said. "We can wait for the deer to starve themselves to death. We can watch them waste away from disease.

"Nature's not gentle. The answer being proposed is the best one."

E-mail svela@enquirer.com