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Health & Fitness

Just the Facts Ma'am, Just the Facts: On Weston Bow Hunting

The facts don't support Weston bow hunting. The ConCom Report has no credible data and town officials may have conflicts of interest. Emotion aside, consider these 5 facts when making up your mind.

Our town officials, elected and appointed, deserve our gratitude for all they do to run Weston.  In return, citizens deserve credible reports on critical issues and full disclosure of how decisions affecting our quality of life are made and how our money is spent.  This has not been the case with Weston’s bow-hunting issue.

 

Here are the facts; you can draw your own conclusions.

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Fact 1 - No one knows how many deer there are in Weston.  The Conservation Commission’s (“ConCom”) five page Report delivered in May 2012 concluded that Weston has a deer problem based on “facts” such as: “All evidence we have received from long-time residents indicates that twenty years ago there were few deer in Weston, whereas today there are many.”   Sorry, but I laughed out loud when I read this “proof” of too many deer in Weston.

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It has been reported that Weston’s deer population is estimated to be 25 deer/mile.  Not true.  That estimate is for the deer population in Wildlife Management Zone 10 – a huge track running north to New Hampshire, south to Wrentham and west to Hopkinton.   25 deer/mile is the estimate for the entire Zone, not specifically for Weston, Boston or any other locality.

 

The ConCom agrees that the actual deer population is unknown but makes the convenient, unsubstantiated claim that the Zone 10 estimate is valid for Weston:   “We do not know the exact deer population of Weston or whether it continues to increase, however the evidence we have gathered is consistent with Massachusetts Department of Fish and Wildlife estimate for our region of about 25 deer/square mile.”   The problem: the Report provides no such evidence.

 

Fact 2 - Undisclosed to town residents, the Chair of the Board of Selectmen and the ConCom’s chief architect of the hunting program co-taught a course at Brandeis University.    The flyer advertising the course to students: “Explore the stewardship of land and other natural resources, using conservation land in Weston, Mass, as your living laboratory.” 

 

Before knowing about the course, I attended a Selectmen’s meeting to ask about the faculty relationship.  Seemed to me there could be a conflict of interest if their town positions fostered their faculty positions.   After some initial hemming and hawing, they acknowledged some association but quickly moved on.    Despite the opportunity, they did not disclose their very close working relationship.   The next day, I learned about the course and found the advertisement.

 

I was shocked that not only were they faculty members, but they co-taught a course on the very topic of the town debate and were using Weston conservation land as the field study site.  This should have been disclosed to Weston residents long before I asked my question but certainly in response to it.

 

I subsequently learned that Weston taxpayers footed a $1,339 bill to build three enclosures somehow related to the deer study.  At the Selectmen’s meeting, the ConCom said that Weston paid for the materials but not the labor.  I now presume the students provided the labor begging other larger questions: who benefited from, and, therefore, should have paid for the enclosures? The taxpayers of Weston or Brandeis?  It’s difficult to know because it’s not clear what the Brandeis students did vis-à-vis the Weston deer program.

 

Fact 3A ConCom member considered seeking a grant to study the Weston bow-hunting program.    In July 2012, The Town Crier reported that a member of the ConCom “hopes to get grant support to pursue a study of Weston’s program as a model of how to control deer populations in suburban areas.”   So I inquired about this at the Selectman’s meeting.   Initially, there was no recollection of a grant  – until I read the quote.   With memory restored, the Member assured me there was no grant under consideration.  Why?  The Town Attorney advised of a potential conflict of interest and suggested that the Member should resign if a grant were pursued.

 

Hopefully, departing town officials are prohibited from seeking personal or professional inurement after leaving. Otherwise, an official could set up a program, leave office and soon thereafter benefit from their work as a public official.

 

Finally, the ConCom trumpeted public health and safety in its campaign to bring bow hunting to Weston.  The report cited high incidences of deer/car collisions and Lyme disease as further proof that “Weston is beginning to experience serious problems from a high deer population.”   Again, the facts do not support the Report’s claims.

 

Fact 4  – Deer/car collisions have declined in Weston.  The ConCom report: “On average, 31 deer/car collisions are reported annually to the Weston police dept.”  The average is misleading, the trend is not.   If the deer population were reaching epidemic proportions, incidents of deer strikes should be increasing dramatically year over year.  They haven’t.  In fact, they declined over the 3-year period preceding the Report:

2011 - 26 deer/car collisions

2010 – 28 deer/car collisions

2009 – 36 deer/car collisions

In 2012, there were 24 reported strikes -- down 33% since 2009. 

Fact 5Lyme disease statistics are not straightforward.  Even the Center for Disease Control statistics are subject to significant interpretation and restatement.  In some years, reported statistics were based on “confirmed” cases, in others on “probable” and “confirmed” cases combined.  Furthermore, no one knows how many cases are unreported. The Lyme Disease Association adjusts CDC statistics because “only 10% of the cases get reported.”   Who knows if that is true but it is evidence that the actual numbers are unknown.

 

Given this ambiguity, it’s not possible draw conclusions about the severity of Lyme in Weston.   The ConCom Report: “The Center for Disease Control reports an average 46 cases of Lyme disease are confirmed annually in Weston, and this number is grossly underreported.”  Although the number of cases is likely underreported, no data are presented to substantiate the claim of gross underreporting.   Just as with deer/car strike statistics, the average is meaningless.   A trend analysis might have been helpful.

Finally, Weston made 28 licenses available to hunters. If we're overrun with deer, why did it take experienced hunters 306 hunting days to kill only 18 deer?

I understand the value of proper wildlife conservation programs including hunting – I hunted as a youngster.   However, the ConCom’s Report is not credible and the conflicts of interest among town officials call into question the motivations for the program.  After reviewing the facts, I’ve concluded that Weston deserves better and should repeal the bow-hunting program.

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