Fredonia Trustee Michelle Twichell wants village officials to consider using the “Deer Doctor” for help with the village’s overpopulation of deer.

Twichell cited an Oct. 20 OBSERVER article where a Jamestown resident asked the city council to consider bringing in Sandy Baker for its own deer overpopulation problem. Twichell noted that Baker suggested the city share expenses with Fredonia so the village could use her services too.

“She’s advocating for more effective deterrents and measures to be put in place to alleviate the issues, while protecting the wildlife population in the area,” Twichell said at Monday’s Fredonia Board of Trustees meeting.

“I know people (in Fredonia) didn’t like the idea of hunting the deer. I looked at her website, she has a lot of great ideas. Maybe people can just learn enough from there,” she added.

Twichell said a public education session by Baker in the village might be worthwhile and offered to get more information.

“The problem has not gone away. We’ve refused to do anything about it,” Trustee Jon Espersen said.

Espersen reported in May that other villages in New York have used bow hunters to cull herds, some of them creating a database of available hunters for homeowners to access.

Fredonia’s wildlife lovers then pushed back against the idea of hunting deer within village limits.

“I’m almost sorry I ever looked into it. … I got eviscerated for just pointing out that bow hunting is legal inside the village following DEC guidelines,” Espersen told the OBSERVER in September.

At Monday’s meeting, he expressed interest in Baker’s services, and indicated he would also follow up on getting more information about them.

“I thought maybe this is a better way of handling it,” Twichell said. “As we all found out, nobody wanted to have the deer hunted. Maybe by this approach, we could deter a lot of the deer that are giving people problems.”