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title	description	date
Legality of Feeding Deer in Los Alamos	Area man asked to stop feeding deer, calls for defunding Game and Fish.	2024-09-02

Sunday, September 2, 2024 at 10:39 am

This was published as a letter to the Editor of the Los Alamos Daily Post

By Dr. Ken Werley
Los Alamos

To: State Representative Christine Chandler, Los Alamos Daily Post, and NM Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF),
Re: feeding deer in Los Alamos:

BACKGROUND:

I have lived at my residence for 40 years. For 25 years, when I notice an interested deer, I have fed it a small cup of birdseed that takes a deer 2-3 minutes of their day to consume. My house backs onto the golf course and it has the only unfenced yard on the east side of 35th St on my block. Some deer daily pass though my yard on the way between the golf course and the many fruit trees across the street (and to get to the canyon beyond). Nightly, I take my hummingbird and suet feeders inside to not attract bear. I only place a thin layer of birdseed into the bottom my 40-year-old bird feeder (for birds) because a big deer could empty the whole feeder. I try to not put birdseed into the feeder if a deer is in sight. In 40 years, I have never seen a deer/car accident on my block. This spring/summer, I have had seen deer, rabbit, skunk, raccoon, fox, coyote, and bear pass through my yard.

LAW: It is legal to feed deer in New Mexico.

PROBLEM:

On May 31, 2024, NM Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF) Officer Carter showed up at my residence, issued me a warning citation, and told me I had to stop feeding deer. When asked why, Officer Carter stated: (1) “The deer in town (Los Alamos), … are all nuisance animals.” [Carter 6/1/2024 email] and thus: (2) He will issue citations for all feeding of deer in Los Alamos. (This is equivalent to claiming feeding is illegal in Los Alamos.)

I have read the DGF regulation that states it is illegal to create nuisance animals. It seems to me that the regulation was written to permit DGF to deal with individual problem animals, for instance, if the animal attacks a person or pet. It seems wrong and illegitimate for Officer Carter to do species profiling and declare all deer, bear and mountain lions in town as nuisance animals.

• Carter’s claim (1) seems ridiculous to me! Furthermore, he refuses to supply any numerical criteria or published guidelines that explain or justify how DFG may classify a deer as a nuisance. Instead, Carter refers to vague general principles including car accidents, predator encounters, and disease.
• I have lived at my residence for 40 years and have never observed a car/deer accident in front of my house or on my block. Carter does not supply any numerical statistics about car/deer accidents, number, location, rate/year, or whether speeding, driver inattention, or poor visibility at deer crossing locations is to blame. How many car accidents per year in what confined vicinity make deer a nuisance?
• Carter blames deer for attracting bear to town. Any resident knows that the primary draw of bear is garbage cans and fruit trees. ** I don’t know about most of town, but near the golf course, the deer actually reduce the number of predators because they chase away coyotes. Deer chase coyotes for a distance further than the length of a fairway. Neighborhood pets benefit greatly from this.
• Carter has not presented any evidence of any widespread deadly deer disease epidemics.
• The deer have been living and roaming through the neighborhoods of Los Alamos since before Officer Carter was born. These deer are obviously more used to people and dogs than deer that live in more remote areas.

[Interesting aside: People cause car accidents, attract predators and spread diseases. Does that mean that people are nuisance animals, and we ought declare feeding them via grocery stores and restaurants be banned?}

Feeding of deer has been legal in Los Alamos for decades. What has changed in the last year that Carter can now claim that the deer are a nuisance? Where is the historical data that demonstrates that all the deer in Los Alamos are suddenly a nuisance? Where is data that demonstrates that feeding deer a small cup of birdseed has changed any deer’s wandering patterns? (When did Carter start working in the Española Office?)

Carter says DGF has received reports of my feeding deer (which is legal in NM), but he won’t break down when they were made, the addresses of the reporters, and whether they were reports of feeding or of “creating nuisance animals”.

• Most of my neighbors live in harmony with the local deer.
• Carter has not performed a survey of the neighbor’s views concerning deer.
• I can easily make a list of many more people who have supported and encouraged the feeding of deer (a small amount of food per deer) at my residence.
• The County of Los Alamos has recently killed a proposed ordinance that would have banned the feeding of wildlife.

Certainly, over-feeding of deer is bad if it disrupts the natural feeding behavior. If it is a tiny part of both their diet and their movement patterns, then that argument doesn’t apply.

Officer Carter will not explain what achievable measurable result that he hoped to achieve by banning feeding of deer at my residence? Four herds of doe routinely feed on the golf course on the northwest side of Diamond Dr. One of those herds routinely pass through my unfenced yard. After 3 months of a feeding ban, the deer still pass through my yard regularly. Lately, I’m seeing many fawns per day. What did he achieve by the ban? How can he achieve any change if he already considers all deer in town to be a nuisance? His only goal seems to be to subvert the law that feeding deer is legal in NM and ban feeding of deer in Los Alamos. Since it has been 3 months since Carter has banned all feeding of deer in Los Alamos, and since he blames feeding as the main source of creating nuisance animals, why doesn’t he declare all the deer in Los Alamos as no longer a nuisance?

Officer Carter’s manager, DGF Sergeant Benjamin Otero, has tried to defend Carter’s actions by claiming that “Every situation is different due to the circumstances” [email 7/5/2024]. This is a falsehood. Carter has claimed that all deer in town are nuisance animals. He also stated that he is “addressing every location that is a feeding location.” and “No house in town will be feeding deer.” [Carter 6/1/2024 email] He bragged that he had a long list of feeders, and I recall him mentioning Urban Park and The Posse Shack as some locations. These are located multiple miles away from my residence. Clearly, DGF’s goal is to subvert the law that feeding deer is legal in NM and ban feeding of deer in Los Alamos.

DGF Sergeant Benjamin Otero’s manager, DGF Captain Darrell Cole [email 7/19/2024] states that “The Department does not have a policy on what constitutes deer feeding” and it is okay to feed deer unless there is an intent to “entice game animals to an area”. I have no such intent. For 40 years at this residence, deer routinely pass through my yard going between the golf course and the fruit trees across the street and the canyon beyond. It seems silly to base feeding restrictions on intent rather than on feed amounts per deer and feed that determines deer movement patterns. Carter does not supply any numerical statistics about car/deer accidents, number, location, rate/year, or whether speeding, driver inattention, or poor visibility at deer crossing locations (Diamond Dr.) are to blame. How can DGF managers argue local conditions when Officer Carter claims all deer in Los Alamos are nuisance animals?

SUMMARY:

Officer Carter’s shortfalls:

• He claims all deer in Los Alamos are nuisance animals.
• He won’t define numerical criteria used to declare nuisance deer.
• He doesn’t explain how feeding a small amount creates a nuisance animal.
• He doesn’t consider the amount of food given per deer.
• He blindly and unfairly targets people who have been reported as feeding deer.
• He refuses to explain what constitutes feeding: For example, filling bird feeders with birdseed, spreading birdseed on the ground, allowing birds to knock birdseed to the ground, fertilizing the yard, allowing weeds to grow, filling the hummingbird feeder with nectar, spreading bread crumbs on the ground for ravens, allowing fruit to lie in the ground, planting a fruit tree, planting a garden. I have seen deer feed on all of the above activities. If a person is threatened with citations and fines for feeding deer, it would seem that he ought provide detailed rules for what is legal.
• He blindly ignores that the main feeding provided to town deer is by the County through fertilizing and heavily watering of Parks and the Golf Course and by fruit tree owners. He states that “The golf course, fruit trees and small private gardens do not contribute”. [Carter 6/1/2024 email]
• He doesn’t consider that 83% of the land surrounding my block of 35th St. is undeveloped land (golf course and canyons). How can anyone expect deer to not utilize the area?
• He ignores that 80% of my neighbors have fruit trees. He ignores that deer feed on fruit trees from early spring (flowers and new leaves), through late spring (immature fruit blown off of trees), through summer and fall (ripe fruit), and through late fall (fallen leaves).
• He ignores that my yard is the only unfenced yard on the east side of my block and is a natural path between the golf course and the fruit trees and canyons beyond.
• Officer Carter claims it is illegal to feed deer fruit underneath a fruit tree where they are already feeding. Where is any logic in that? (Carter email 6/27/2024)
• He claims it is illegal to feed deer on the golf course where they are already feeding. Deer often feed there for multiple hours per day. (Carter email 6/27/2024)
• How can anyone create a nuisance animal if it is already a nuisance (because it exists in town) before ever getting to any residence?
• Officer Carter doesn’t survey the neighborhood residents to see if they consider the local deer a nuisance before unilaterally declaring them a nuisance?
• He won’t explain if he considers birdseed an unnatural food of deer.
• He ignores the benefits of local deer: eating weeds from yards, cleaning up fallen fruit before they begin to rot, chasing away coyotes, being beautiful to observe and photograph?

The DGF employees are supposed to be professionals and deer experts, but it sure doesn’t seem so.

DGF shortfalls:

• DGF personnel appear to try to avoid explaining their policies.
• When asked directly, DGF management refuse to answer whether Carter’s claim #(1) is official DGF policy?
• They don’t have a policy they use to define a nuisance deer.
• They don’t have an explanation of how feeding a deer a small amount of birdseed (a tiny part of its diet) makes it a nuisance animal.
• They claim all feeding of deer in Los Alamos warrants a citation (Carter) but avoid stating that feeding deer is illegal in Los Alamos. That is totally disingenuous!
• They won’t define what human activities constitute feeding deer even though they threaten fines for it.
• They don’t even consider the amount of food per deer per day.
• They won’t provide a plan to make a nuisance deer be considered not a nuisance.
• DGF will not provide maps that define the areas where they consider nuisance deer to be located? (Even though Carter considers the whole town.)
• Even though it is legal to feed deer in NM, they won’t specify where in Los Alamos County it is legal.
• DGF allows an employee to declare and treat all deer in Los Alamos to be nuisance animals. That is disgusting.

NMDGF seems to employ a lot of dishonest people. Please consider cutting NMDGF’s budget.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Kenneth A. Werley