NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — The Eureka Springs City Council has passed an ordinance banning the feeding of wild deer that will go into effect in 30 days.
Next, the council will take up the issue of an urban bow hunt to thin the herds. But the six council members don’t plan to make that decision on their own. They are investigating whether the question should be placed on the Nov. 2 general election ballot so voters in Eureka Springs can make the call.
Alderman Butch Berry said he’ll bring the bow-hunt ballot issue up for a vote atthe next council meeting on Aug. 9 if nobody else does. Berry said he may not have an ordinance drafted ahead of time, but aldermen can hammer one out during the meeting.
“They’re running into my car,” Berry said of the city’s deer. “They’re eating my plants. I’ve totaled one car, a Cadillac. I had venison on the grille. I’ve had five deer hit me over the past 10 years. I think so many people are upset finally and recognize we have a problem. We just have an overabundance of deer.”
Deer are often advertised as scenery in the heavily for-ested city of 2,278 residents. There isn’t a good estimate of the deer population in Eureka Springs.
Deer watching is entertaining for tourists, but some residents said they have had enough. Twenty-five residents who live in the neighborhood around Hillside Avenue signed a petition and took it to the June 14 council meeting to complain. The council passed the feeding ban Monday.
Also Monday, the council asked Mary Jean Sell, the city clerk, to see if the hunt could be added to the Nov. 2 ballot. After checking with the Carroll County Election Commission, Sell said it’s possible, as long as the information is provided to the commission by early September.
Sell said an ordinance could be proposed and passed with an emergency clause during the Aug. 9 meeting. That would keep it from having to go through the customary three readings at different council meetings, which would take six weeks.
“Discussion of the deer population and possible solutions has been on the council agenda for the last three meetings,” said Sell. “So any squawk that the council is trying to do anything behind somebody’s back is not pertinent.”
The ordinance banning feeding passed by a 5 to 1 vote.Patrick Brammer accounted for the only no vote.
“The ordinance itself is not going to be an enforceable one by the city,” said Brammer, who works at a Tyson Foods Inc. plant in Green Forest. “The police department already said it’s not enforceable. The neighbors will have to witness and report on neighbors feeding deer.”
Police Chief Earl Hyatt said the proposed law would be enforceable, but it would require a police officer seeing someone feeding a deer or neighbors filing complaints against neighbors.
Alderman James DeVito said he doesn’t feel enforceability will be much of an issue.
“My position in all of this is most people are law-abiding citizens,” DeVito said. “If you pass a law outlawing feeding, most people will abide by it.”
DeVito said he’s not in favor of a hunt, but he would vote to add the question to the Nov. 2 election ballot.
“The only time I truly hear from my constituents is during an election,” he said. “The rest of the time I hear from representatives of one side or another. People say, ‘Do what your constituents want you to do,’ but the only time you really know what they want you to do is during a general election.”
DeVito said he’d rather wait to see if the feeding ban improves the situation.
“We’re just now getting thefeeding thing done,” he said.
Council member Beverly Blankenship said, “I just don’t believe that it’s going to get the results that they want, but if that’s what the town wants and it’s a good first step, so that’s fine,” she said.
Brad Miller, a deer biologist who spoke at a previous council meeting, said corn, which is often used to attract deer, can cause health problems in deer and attract raccoons, possums and rodents.
The ordinance included a $100 fine for a first offense and $200 for a second offense within one year.
Arkansas ranks sixth in the nation for deer-vehicle collisions, with 18,974 collisions reported during the last half of 2008 and the first half of 2009, according to State Farm, the nation’s largest insurer. The company doesn’t break down the report by city.
Miller, deer program coordinator with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said there are about 800,000 deer in Arkansas, and about 200,000 of those are killed during deer season each fall. By the time the next deer season rolls around, the deer have had so many fawns that the number of deer is back up to 800,000. There’s no way to put a good estimate on the number of deer in Eureka Springs, he said.
Miller said hunters certified by the Game and Fish Commission for urban bow hunts must take an international bow-hunting education course, attend an orientation session and pass a shooting test.
Urban bow hunts for deer were held last year in Bull Shoals, Cherokee Village, Horseshoe Bend and Hot Springs Village.
Eureka Springs voters defeated a proposed urban deer hunt in 2002 by a vote of 576 to 364.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/28/2010