Sleepy Hollow residents concerned over bowhunting of deer

An unauthorized web survey about how to deal with Sleepy Hollow's deer population has caused quite a stir.

Village President Stephen Pickett said Tuesday that despite impassioned pleas to the village board and several letters to the editor of the Daily Herald concerning the culling of deer through bow hunting, "there are no solutions, no recommendations, no findings, no facts."

Pickett said that about three weeks ago a member of the village's environmental committee put a survey on the village's website about asking for a "yes" or "no" response to whether one favored a no-firearm reduction in the number of deer in Sleepy Hollow.

"It was a member of the committee who thought they were doing the right thing," Pickett said. "They got a little ahead of themselves."

He declined to name the committee member who posted the poll, noting it "would not be appropriate."

The survey has since been taken down, but it has caused several rumors to swirl, residents say.

Walter Heffron said he heard through the grapevine that a "yes" answer was being interpreted as being in favor of killing deer through bow hunting.

"I took issue with that," Heffron said.

Heffron was one of nearly a dozen people to speak out about the issue at the village's May 17 board meeting. He also wrote a May 25 letter to the editor. "Becoming a deer-killing village would be appalling and incomprehensible," he wrote.

Mona Auer was another resident who approached the village board and local newspapers out of concern.

"Some Sleepy Hollow residents are proposing the massacre of part of our deer population by bow and arrow, and the gruesome idea of a monetary bounty per animal has been raised," she wrote to the Daily Herald earlier this month. "... 'Non-firearm control' does not mean nonlethal, as one skeptical observer noted. Such a pursuit is illegal in this village, long designated a wildlife sanctuary per ordinance."

Pickett said the environmental committee still has much work ahead. "It has been conducting a review and fact finding study to find out what really is out there. We don't know if there are too many (deer) or not enough. ... This was a little misstep."