City resident Grant Briggs talks with the Public Safety Committee about the deer problem in the city. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

It is the return of the deer problem in the city for the Jamestown city council.

The city has had a problem with deer overpopulation for many years, with how to go about fixing the problem causing issues as well, and the discussion was brought up once again at Monday’s City Council meeting as a constituent approached the Public Safety Committee about it.

“I’m here to talk about the deer,” city resident Grant Briggs said. “They are out of hand in my neighborhood. I know there’s no hunting in Jamestown, so the herd just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I had 17 deer in my side yard the other day.”

Briggs said in front of his house there is a bank of juniper that stretches about 100 feet long that is all gone because the deer have eaten all of it. He acknowledged that the subject of the deer has come up for 20 years, but added that something has to change. Additionally, Briggs said babies will be born soon and that there is already not enough food for them, which is why they are eating the juniper on his bank. Briggs asked if the city had any plans, saying that he had called the state Department of Environmental Conservation, who told him to talk to the city.

“There was a plan at one time, but there were some issues with it and it didn’t pass,” Councilman Tony Dolce, R-Ward 2 and chair of the Public Safety Committee, said. “We looked at other communities about it. There’s a lot of people on the other side of the issue who don’t want the deer to be harvested in the city. There’s also an issue of safety.”

Briggs noted that people will be hitting them with cars too. Dolce agreed that there is a problem, but added that there is a lot to consider with the issue and that there cannot just be people going around hunting in the city. Briggs suggested a controlled hunt of some kind, and Dolce said while it has been looked into multiple times it can possibly be looked into by the current city council again. The DEC will also not come in and dart the deer and take them away somewhere. Dolce added that that is very expensive and time consuming, and is not necessarily effective.

Dolce addressed the issue again at the full work session of the city council. Dolce said it would be up to the council to decide if this was something to look at again, adding that in the past they have met multiple times with the DEC and held community meetings, and that the plan that was also previously mentioned in the public safety committee meeting did not pass for a few reasons.

“Again, it’s a touchy issue,” Dolce said. “There’s people that obviously know there’s a lot of deer in the city that can be a nuisance. But, there’s also a lot of people with concerns about having any type of hunting in the city limits for safety reasons.”

Dolce said he would not be opposed to looking at the issue again and resurrecting a committee if the council decided to take that action. Having gone through it before, Dolce said there are pros and cons, including cost, effectiveness and safety. The city has looked at other communities and how they handled the deer problem and if those methods were effective, but Dolce noted that all communities are different and unique.

“A plan in one city doesn’t necessarily fit in another city, whether it’s a suburb, whether there’s a lot of rural area around it,” Dolce said.

He emphasized that he is not for or against anything to do with looking into the issue again. Mayor Kim Ecklund added that the state DEC is changing hunting regulations, and that they understand there is a mass overpopulation of does, so regulations as to how many hunters are allowed to kill per season are changing.

“They are proposing changing the season dates, which will help outside the area, and to be honest with you, a lot of us that live on the outside know that they come from the outside, so hopefully that is one thing that is happening,” Ecklund said. “Just to give you some background that the state is aware that there’s an issue of overpopulation, not just here.”