After Years Of Debate, Pilot Programs, Forums, Southold Town Still Grappling With Escalating Deer Concerns

SOUTHOLD, NY — Thirteen years ago, Southold Town residents packed the recreation center for a deer management forum aimed at shining a spotlight on the critical issues sparked by overpopulation of the species, including tick-borne diseases, impacts to the environment, and safety concerns posed by deer strikes on town roads.

On Tuesday, the town board convened for a work session where, more than a decade later, the same concerns have residents crying out for relief — as Southold remains a hotbed for a rising number of tick-borne diseases.

A recent Change.org petition, "Address Overpopulation of Deer in Southold," was created by resident Barbara Pantino.

"As a resident of Southold, I've seen firsthand the dramatic rise in tick-borne illnesses, a crisis that has rapidly spread westward across Long Island. Our local deer population has surged out of control, directly contributing to the increasing prevalence of these diseases," Pantino wrote. "This overpopulation not only poses a significant public health risk, but it also leads to environmental imbalances, and property damage. The beautiful landscapes of the North Fork are at risk."

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, deer overpopulation can drastically impact ecosystem dynamics, she wrote.

"The excessive deer population is linked to a reduction in plant biodiversity and can lead to the loss of native plant species, creating a ripple effect throughout the ecosystem and reducing the habitat available for other wildlife. A single deer can consume up to seven pounds of vegetation a day, causing significant damage to local vegetation."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pantino added, "reports that tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease, have been steadily increasing in the Northeast. In Suffolk County alone, there have been thousands of cases reported annually. Each of these cases represents a person whose life has been disrupted by these preventable diseases."

Pantino called for immediate action from the Southold Town board, the town's deer management committee, and New York State authorities to implement an effective deer management program.

"This should include humane population control methods such as 4-poster deer feeding stations for tick management and, if necessary, regulated aggressive culling," Pantiono said. "Additionally, increased public awareness campaigns about tick prevention and the importance of the ecological balance will be crucial."

She urged those "who shares the joys and concerns of living in this beautiful community to join me in demanding that our local and state leaders take swift and decisive action" and sign the petition.

At Tuesday's work session, Dr. John Rasweiler, a member of the Southold Town deer management task force, spoke to the board about the possibility of the 4-poster deer feeding program.

He described how the program worked: "It's essentially a giant bird feeder or a big bin that you put a couple of hundred pounds of corn in, and the corn is dispensed from two troughs on each end, where the deer go to take the corn," he said.

"And at the four corners of the device, there are paint rollers on posts, and the paint rollers are coated with Permithrin. What happens, the deer comes to take corn from the trough, and their head, neck, shoulders are coated with the Permithrin, which effectively kills the ticks."

The devices do work; in past years, Rasweiler said he advocated for them and considered deploying them.

"That was when I was still very naive about all of the downside to them. Since then, I had to educate myself," regarding the negatives, he said.

Rasweiler, who also sits on the Suffolk County Tick Control Advisory Committee, said the county has been "actively" considering the deployment of 4-posters at Indian Island in Riverhead., something he opposes.

It's not the first time the 4-poster plan has been vetted by the Southold town board; the idea was considered a decade ago, when town officials looked to Shelter Island's program.

Amy Dries and Hazel Kahan of the North Fork Deer Management Alliance spoke at a meeting of the East Marion Community Association organized in 2016 to discuss deer concerns.

A number of solutions had proven to be impractical, too pricey, or undesirable, Dries said at that gathering.

Those include yard spray for ticks, which is not practical for the North Fork, she said.

The 4-poster de-ticking stations on Shelter Island, which include a container to release corn for deer, along with paint rollers covered with Permithrin, to roll onto the deer and eradicate ticks, had issues, she said.

New York State regulations say that they cannot be sited within 300 feed or any roads or in any area where children or present, Dries said. Also, in order to be effective, 90 percent or more of the deer population must use the stations. "It's recommended to install one for every 40 to 50 acres. Southold Town is 32,000 acres," Dries said, making them far too cost-prohibitive, something former Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell had long maintained.

Kahan added that the program is controversial; one Shelter Island resident said in 2015, deer consumed 41 lbs. of corn per day at the 4-posters and managed to avoid the Permithrin on the rollers, anyway.

Also in 2015, the price of corn to the town was $51,000. Town employees wearing hazmat suits fill the feeders twice a week, they said.

Deer were simply gaining weight and seeing enhanced fertility, due to the program, opponents said at the time.

"They're getting a free meal," he said. In addition, he said, the deer are gaining weight, up 15 percent, with enhanced fertility due to the 4-posters. Deer that were giving birth to one or two fawns were now yielding two to three.

Finally, opponents said at that event, the 4-posters also attracted raccoons, turkeys and squirrels who feed and then, get exposed to ticks, which they carried away.

And, they, the large presence of wildlife at the 4-posters is also known to cause destruction to the natural environment where they're located.

Referring to Pantino's petition, Rasweiler said, "She identified an extremely serious problem here, right at the top of the problems we face in the Town of Southold — it certainly has to be the number one public health problem. She did a very good job of highlighting that. Unfortunately, I'm less enthusiastic about the solution."

While Pantino focused mainly on the Shelter Island 4-poster program, Rasweiler said it was critical to look at studies done in Westchester, Cape Cod, Tennessee and Virginia; each of those studies highlighted problems associated with the deployment of 4-posters, he said.

Contrary to what the petition states, the Shelter Island program was not a success," Rasweiler maintained. "They never were able to deploy enough 4-posters to accomplish the goals."

North Haven, he said, has a successful program, but the Village of North Haven is only about 2.6 square miles, Rasweiler said.
"They have been able to deploy 20 of the devices. I actually have maps showing where they're deployed. 
They've put 20 devices around the village, and it's been very effective."

The issue is that the program costs about $200,000 yearly to institute, Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski said.

Even if Southold Town installed six or 10 4-poster stations, "We're still talking about an astronomical amount of money," Rasweiler said.

In the final analysis, he added, not only is cost an issue, but the appropriate sites do not exist in Southold Town to position the 4-posters.

"We all know much of the town is devoted to agriculture," he said. "The farmers do not want them on agricultural land."

Also, he said, the FDA's Food Modernization Safety Act indicates that the 4-posters should not be sited on farmland, because farmers are supposed to everything possible to minimize excrement from wildlife.

"As for residential communities, I live on Nassau Point, and I would be hard pressed to think of any place there or one could be deployed, because they cannot be within 300 feet of a road, because of road safety, considerations, and they cannot deal within 300 feet of residences or areas where there are children," Rasweiler said. "If they are close, they have to be fenced, and the fencing is not cheap."

A study in Fairfax, VA, established that deployment of 4-posters was associated with environmental degradation, Rasweiler added.

In addition, he said, the Fairfax study indicated that when the program commenced, they had a density of 184 deer per square mile; after three years, that number had increased to 317 per square mile, he said.

Rasweiler agreed that the 4-posters would enhance fertility, with deer ovulating more and delivering twins and triplets more frequently.

On Shelter Island, at one point during that program, the deer were eating between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds of corn per year, "which is astronomical," he said.

The problem is, the corn gets scattered around the 4-posters, and it attracts all sorts of other wildlife, including raccoons,, crows, mice, rats and raccoons, which carry diseases.

Just recently, two additional rabid raccoons were found in Suffolk County, Rasweiler said.

If that kind of outbreak "gets anywhere close to North Haven, I'm sure the DEC is going to immediately shut down the operation," he said.

Also, Rasweiler said, "a 4-poster program is not a one-or-two year endeavor. There is no finish line. It just keeps on going in a huge expenditure of money. And as soon as you stop at the tick population bounces back, unless by then, you've established a meaningful deer culling program."

He added: "It's a very expensive Band-Aid. All the things we're doing now are essentially Band Aids. They're horrendous problems that are not being effectively addressed, and I don't blame any of that on the town. It all is the fault of New York State, which throws up one obstacle after another to effective management."

In years' past, Southold Town instituted a deer cull, utilizing sharp shooters; that plan sparked controversy, with some urging the sharpshooters to stay away.

In 2023, Gov. Kathy Hochul greenlighted a plan for federal or federal contractors working under the DEC, to implement a more aggressive form of deer population control.

Southold Town Councilwoman Alexa Seuss, liaison to the deer management committee, said she believes that simple hunting is not enough to control the burgeoning herd.

Rasweiler said in 2022 and 2023, activists in town initiated an effort to create a change to New York State's environmental conservation law; the effort involved North Fork civic associations who signed on to the effort.

The bill included "much more aggressive strategies for managing deer, such as the use of sharpshooters, and even mentioning things like corralling them in residential areas where you can't effectively hunt them," he said. "And every strategy they tried to use to get rid of the deer, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said, 'No, you can't do that.'"

Rasweiler said one hope was to utilize immobilizing drugs before humanely euthanizing deer. "We wanted permission to do that because there are many residential communities here on the North Fork that are overrun with deer," he said. "So what happened was we requested all of these changes from the legislature, and at the final stage of the process, it's sort of a black box. We didn't know what was going on. The bill that finally came out regarding a pilot program for the Town of Southold, is essentially worthless," Rasweiler said. "They totally emasculated what we requested, what we got is simply not up to the up to the challenge. So hopefully, we want to address that as soon as possible, re-address it.".

In his mind, Rasweiler said: "The only affordable and workable way of solving our tick problem is a deer cull."

Southold Town Councilwoman Jill Doherty detailed all the years of meetings that preceded Tuesday's work session.

"It took meeting after meetings to really dive into all this, and I think we came to the same conclusion: Culling is the best way," she said.

Rasweiler said unfortunately, the cull that was done on Nassau Point didn't work out, not because of a lack of deer, but due to circumstances, weather and cost; the United States Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services division helped to defray that cost.

The sharpshooters' process, Rasweiler said, was "extraordinarily safe. They are highly trained, they use special bullets — they do everything to minimize the possibility of collateral damage."

But due to the expense, only a small-scale effort was possible, he said.

The Village of Lloyd Harbor, he added, ran an effective deer culling program for a number of years.

Other obstacles such as political football between federal and state agencies put the brakes on future culls, he said.

Doherty reminded that the town has long had a program for hunters to donate venison to those facing food insecurity.

The issue, the board agreed, is bipartisan.

The problem, Rasweiler said, is that there are some elected officials "who do not believe this is a health crisis."

Education is key, all agreed.

The board thanked Rasweiler for his continued diligence.

Seuss added: "While I fully agree with you that we cannot control deer populations alone with recreational hunting, I think it's still a really important puzzle piece to managing this issue. And I personally would still love to work toward a hunting mentorship program or educational program to teach more people how to bow hunt, to both encourage newer hunters — but also as an effort toward better public understanding of the hunting and conservation effort."

"Every single deer the recreational hunters take out is highly beneficial, not in terms of reducing the environmental damage the deer do, but in regard to the tick multiplier effect," Rasweiler agreed. "One deer can sustain thousands of ticks, each mature female drops off to produce two to six to 8,000 eggs. So one deer can have a phenomenal effect upon the tick population. Every one we remove is significant. For instance, this past hunting season during our program on Nassau Point, we removed 24 deer. That's a lot of potential ticks, particularly when you consider the vast majority of those were those which were probably pregnant and would have been producing still more."

Residents also should be made aware of the continued efforts on the part of Southold Town for more than a decade, Rasweiler said, to address the issue of deer management, with its deer management program being one of the best, and a model for many communities, he said.

The board asked Rasweiler why people continue to feed deer in town, and asked how the deer management committee was addressing that problem; T-shirts saying, "Don't feed the deer," might help, they said.

Rasweiler said he would be the first to admit that deer "are lovely animals, fascinating to watch. And in fact, I am not knee-jerk anti-deer. I advise wildlife authorities internationally at a very high level, and I have actually gone in and advocated for preservation in deer, where they were being hunted to oblivion. The question is, do you have the appropriate number of animals in the right place? And here, that most definitely is not the case. 
I can see why people would want to feed them, particularly if you have kids, you'd love for them to be able to see it. But it should not be done, and certainly not on a large scale."