STOP HUNTING IN CITY LIMITS - BEMIDJI, MN

We have a large community of hunters in our region and have been bombarded with poachers and Antler hunters right in town. Now they have found a way to try to hunt these animals legally.

We are a neighborhood of four schools, trailer parks, business's, hiking & cross country ski paths and children's parks and albeit we have wooded areas, the dangers of this planned in town hunt are unfathomable. There would never be enough safety precautions. Known facts: Hunting is ineffective for solving human/deer conflicts.

Studies show that car/deer collisions increase during hunting season because hunters frighten the deer out of the woods and onto roads. Contrary to popular belief, hunting does not address Lyme disease because the ticks are usually spread to humans by mice, not deer. And as long as suburban landscaping includes deer-preferred plants such as tulips and rhododendrons, that landscaping will attract hungry deer, no matter how many deer there are. Impotant to know because this is the most frequent excuse used for these hunts; Hunting does not reduce the deer population because removing some individuals from the population results in more food per deer, which leads to the births of more twins and triplets.

This also means that hunting is unnecessary because the deer will self-regulate and give birth to fewer fawns when food is scarce.