Beginning on Monday, October 1, specially selected residents of Meridian Township will be dawning their best archery skills to help lower the population of deer. This morning I interviewed Jane Greenway of Parks and Recreation and she explained why this Hunger Games style activity was taking place. There have been numerous complaints from residents who had been seeing an over population of deer in their neighborhoods. The majority of requests were coming from residents that live by the river, which houses a great amount of vegetation for the deer to feed on. There have also been an increase in car accidents caused by deer encounters. She also explained that during this time of year, doe (female deer) are in heat, hence the great population growth (Oh boy!).
Selected darts for archery bows
So in 2011, the department did a survey asking residents what options they felt would be most beneficial in lowering the deer/human encounters, some of them being fatal. The end result? Managed Deer Harvest. But this is not something that the general public can participate in. Only trained, qualified, competent and experienced hunters living in Meridian Township are allowed to register for the harvest.
I also had the privilege of interviewing former WXYZ reporter Mike Lewis who will be participating in the harvest as well. I could tell he was really excited to be using his archery skills. But I noticed that he had a different and more heart felt approach about the harvest. He explained that each hunter was allowed to keep one deer, and any other deer that are killed will be given to a meat market where they will be stored and given to people to combat hunger. So he stated that he would rather have more full stomachs than too many deer running wild and free.
I was worried about how I was going to get even all this information when I just received the story today. But low and behold, look at what HOMTV journalists can do!!!
Looking forward to getting this story done and completed ^_^.
