March 10 talk explores efficacy of deer sterilization

Is deer sterilization an effective way to reduce deer populations humanely?

On March 10, Sunny Simon, chair of Cuyahoga County’s Education, Environment, and Sustainability Committee, will speak on the topic at 3 p.m., at the University Heights Library, during a meeting of Green Noble, a Cleveland Heights environmental activist group. 

Simon has led an experimental effort in South Euclid to capture and sterilize deer with the help of a private contractor, White Buffalo Inc.  The five-year program, now in its third year, tranquilizes some does and removes their ovaries. The deer then are released back to the neighborhood.  Other female deer serve as a control group and are merely captured and tagged, left intact reproductively, and then released.  Both groups are tagged for easy recognition. The area of deer capture extends north of Mayfield Road up to Bluestone, and west to the border of Cleveland Heights.

Study results are complicated by the fact that South Euclid also culls deer with the help of sharpshooters. Together, however, the deer-reduction programs have had a noticeable impact on South Euclid neighborhoods. 

Debbie Wright, a South Euclid resident, said, “I love deer, but there were too many. They ate all my flowers. The herd that gathered in my yard would not move when I would return home from a walk. They would stamp their feet at me when I got close, even if my dog was with me. Now I still see deer but not as many and they are more apt to move away from me.”