Stop deer culling; leave them alone
Seventy healthy, innocent deer were slaughtered to undergo expensive testing of questionable value for chronic wasting disease by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. No disease was found.
Sleepy Hollow, Dundee Township and the Kane County Forest Preserve District voted for this ruthless culling, claiming a need for “scientific research.”
“Research” information as to where the disease might be located or whether any animals are infected is not useful in preventing its spread because there is no cure, nor obvious ways to know which animals carry the sickness. Therefore, excessive culling is occurring unjustifiably.
Chronic wasting disease is not communicable to humans.
The IDNR, intent on continuing frequent large-scale kills, says they “remain concerned about the spread of the disease and the health of the deer population,” but slaughter and costly testing are totally ineffective as prevention.
Their program left Sleepy Hollow residents to see their half-century status as “wildlife sanctuary” forever altered by ordinance changes, to endure evenings of gunfire, then to watch bloody carcasses dragged to a waiting van.
Despite public outcry, the village’s Environmental Committee sadly and senselessly approved it. They, too, bought into the need for “scientific research” which, as I’ve pointed out, does not result in a solution.
Some deer will get sick and they will die, thereby thinning out their own numbers.
Leave them alone.
Mona Auer
Sleepy Hollow