Failure Predicted

With East Hampton Village having accepted more than $100,000 toward a test project to spay deer, it probably will go forward, but it may actually delay effective management and avoid comprehensive analysis of the role their growing numbers play in tick-borne illnesses as well as their effect on the environment.

Village and town officials abandoned public funds last year for a program in which sharpshooters were to reduce the herd through nighttime hunts. In its place now are private donations earmarked for removing the ovaries of tranquilized does, at about $1,000 a head, within village limits but nothing at all beyond them.    

Whatever is undertaken to control the deer population must be consistent across the South Fork, and, at present, there appears no cost-effective means but hunting. Money for spaying more broadly would be unlikely in the extreme. By accepting private funding, the village is assuring a patchwork approach almost surely doomed to failure as deer move in from other areas. A regional approach is called for.