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4 Rollingwood’s ongoing debate on whether or not to approve an ordinance prohibiting the feeding of deer should be limited to discussion only because the only significant impact it could have is an adverse one that would involve pitting neighbor against neighbor.
What does make sense is ongoing discussion and education of residents about coexisting with wildlife, which was here long before any existing human habitat and will be here long after all of us are deceased.
During an informative presentation earlier this year, experts told the City Council that there is virtually no reasonable means of significantly reducing the deer population short of putting a tall fence up around the city. Yet here we are discussing an ordinance that’s end will not justify its means.
Relationships between neighbors is far more important than any vain attempt to control the deer population. Rollingwood City Council members likely succumbed to a small but persistent faction who lobbied for futile attempts to control the deer population through a ban on feeding. But it seems that a more reasonable response would be to simply send out a newsletter with a condensed version of the recent presentation by experts and a detachable questionnaire about whether or not they would like to see such an ordinance proposed. If the majority of the responding residents favored such a futile attempt, so be it. A series of public hearings could then be called before placing it before the City Council for a final vote.
Officials throughout the Westbank have discussed such possible action numerous times in the city’s history and rightfully decided that an ordinance would serve no useful purpose other than stirring up the emotions of residents for no good reason.
The logical solution to dealing with the large number deer in the Hill Country comes from learning to safely coexist with all indigenous wildlife.
It is absurd to say there is nothing that can be done to reduce the deer population. If we had a coyote problem, chances are Mr. Allen would not write the same editorial about learning to live with coyotes which were “here long before any existing human habitat.” Good grief.
The fact is, Lakeway has been dealing directly with their deer problem for the past 10 years. Every year Lakeway sends trapped deer to a processing plant. According to the Statesman, since 1999 Lakeway has removed 3,000 deer and sent 20,000 pounds of ground meat to the Capital Area Food Bank.
Thanks to the success of Lakeway, other parts of town are looking to Lakeway for guidance on how to deal with their deer problem. Rollingwood and West Lake Hills would be smart to do the same.
I love these debates. Why would you feed deer to begin with? It goes against their natural instincts. By providing food to deer, you arent going to keep them out of your yard, you are going to make them a nusance to the rest of the city. If you dont want them eating your plants, fence your plants in. Feeding them just brings them in your yard anyways, you arent doing them any favors by taking away their natural feeding instincts. They were here first, that’s true, but they dont have any of their defensive instincts anymore because everyone is babying them. Have you tried driving around Rollingwood or even Westlake at night? There are probably 30 deer within 3 streets of my house every night and they barely flinch when I get out of my car and they are 5 feet away. If you want a pet deer to feed that’s a different issue, but stop saying they were here first and then excuse domesticating them. As for pitting neighbors against each other- if you feed deer and bring them in your yard, they will go into your neighbor’s yard- that’s going to be a problem anyways. Misdemeanor or not, feeding them is just a ridiculous idea and shouldnt be premitted, at least not by the arguments I have heard so far. As for education, I would agree that giving people the information on how to co-exist would be great, but people are going to do what they want regardless of what they should or should not do. I say make it a misdemeanor or at least make it clear that feeding them is unacceptable.
Why would having more coyotes be so bad? It’s the lack of coyotes and other natural, large predators that has caused our deer problem in the first place.
Also, having exotic, non-deer resistant plants in our yards is doing more for feeding the deer and increasing their population in our neighborhoods than a few people feeding them could ever do.
I have nothing in my yard that deer would want, but they are here anyway because there are good things to eat around the neighborhood. They will eat just about anything. Feeding the dear does contribute to them wanting to be here and it is a problem.
If Rollingwood does not ban deer feeding, it should allow homeowners to build fences to keep them from damaging the landscaping. Allow some way of controlling what is in our yards.
And PLEASE pass an ordinance that requires people to pick up after their dogs.