Tag: deer

Conflicts Between People and Wildlife

  • People sometimes move to the outer suburbs to be a little closer to nature. But when nature turns out to be a squirrel storing nuts in your attic or a raccoon looking for a free meal in your garbage can, there's conflict. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Throughout the Midwest, it’s becoming more and more common
to see wild animals living in the city and the suburbs. The number of coyotes, deer and Canada geese is growing. And suburbs keep sprawling… but the animals there stay put, and adapt to the new surroundings. That can cause conflicts between the animals… and people. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann-Elise Henzl reports:

Transcript

Throughout the Midwest, it’s becoming more and more common
to see wild animals living in the city and the suburbs. The number of
coyotes, deer and Canada geese is growing. And suburbs keep sprawling…
but the animals there stay put, and adapt to the new surroundings. That
can cause conflicts between the animals… and people. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Ann-Elise Henzl reports:


It can get busy at wildlife rehabilitation centers. At this center, five thousand animals are treated and released each year. There’s a big variety, ranging from raccoons to sandhill cranes.


(Sound of birds chirping)


In spring and early summer, it’s very crowded in the nursery.


“We’ve got a young grackle in here, and he’s really on about the one-hour feeding stage learning the transition between us feeding him and feeding himself…”


Scott Diehl is the manager of the wildlife rehabilitation center at the Wisconsin humane society in Milwaukee. Dozens of young animals are being nursed back to health here in incubators and cages.


“Here’s little teenage gray squirrels in here playing around and goofing off and their play activity actually teaches them how to – it helps build their muscles, and teaches them how to climb…”


Many of the babies are here because their parents were run over by cars. That’s what happened to a female mallard who’s being examined by a wildlife rehabilitator, in the “triage” room.


“He’s just outstretching the wings, he’s feeling over the bones to see if he feels fractures and I can see from here that the left wing that he is examining looks like it has fractured metacarpals, so that’s the outer wing, kind of analogous to our fingers, we’ve got actually a little blood showing there. And so Mike is just going to flush that wound out with a little saline now he’s going to examine things, and quite frankly it doesn’t look like she’s using her legs well either.”


It turns out the duck has numerous broken bones and other serious health problems, so she’s euthanized. Mallards are often hit by cars in cities. That’s because they nest in grassy areas, then walk their babies to the water. That can mean crossing a number of streets.


Ricky Lein is the urban wildlife specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
He says people and animals are always getting into some kind of conflict in urban areas.


“Recently I had a person come in who owned twenty acres in a suburban area and talked about how they enjoyed the coyotes as long as they stayed on their territory but the coyote had made the decision to come into their backyard and eat a family cat, and I tried in a very polite way to point out that was the coyote’s territory.”


Lein says urban sprawl also causes problems by creating places that attract some wild animals
like white-tailed deer. They like areas where the woods meet wide-open lawns. That describes many suburban neighborhoods.


As a result, there are now more deer across the Midwest then ever before,
and the population of Canada geese is exploding in the same area. Lein says the geese have found their version of “heaven.”


“A lot of urban parks, condo complexes, whatnot, where you have a pond or storm water run-off pond and they keep five to ten acres of grass mowed around it, and they’ve eliminated hunting… that is heaven to a Canada goose.”


But some communities are considering killing urban geese in order to reduce the population.
Other cities have hired sharpshooters to kill urban deer. So the Humane Society of the United States has created a program called “Wild Neighbors.” Maggie Brasted is the organization’s director for urban wildlife conflicts.


“One of our goals is to help people find solutions so that they can coexist with these wild neighbors, with the wildlife around them, ’cause you know sometimes there are real problems. There are real concerns. It’s not that every time someone is upset about wild animals around them that they should just be told, “Oh just live with it,” there are real issues so we want to be able to offer them real practical solutions other than killing the animals.”


Brasted says there’s a complex relationship between humans and wild animals in urban areas.


“It’s not real simple to just say that you know they were here first or they shouldn’t be here. Or why are they around people? They’re adapting to what we do, they’re adapting to the changes we make. They’re taking advantage of whatever habitat niche that they find.”


Brasted says the wild animals that live in the city and suburbs are there to stay. So people will either have to find ways to live with them or to control their population.


For the GLRC, I’m Ann-Elise Henzl.

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Lessons From Wildlife Photographers

  • Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been photographing wildlife for more than two decades. (Photo by Charity Nebbe)

Wildlife photographers Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been taking pictures of Michigan wildlife for more than twenty years. What started as a hobby has become a lucrative business and spawned two best-selling children’s books. But this year, the work has become about more than just taking beautiful pictures. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe has the story:

Transcript

Wildlife photographers Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been taking pictures of Michigan wildlife for more than twenty years. What started as a hobby has become a lucrative business and spawned two best-selling children’s books. But this year, the work has become about more than just taking beautiful pictures. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe has the story:


(Sound of birds chirping)


It’s early morning, and Carl Sams and his wife and partner, Jean Stoick, have gotten up to take pictures of wildlife in the early morning light.


“Oh, look, we got a deer. Right out there in the water. Is that beautiful. This is incredible. The very doe – I worked here back in 1982 – she crossed this lake, just the lake here, and she was pregnant, and since then I’ve taken over a hundred thousand pictures. Now this doe, she’s actually out eating lily pads right now, and this is typical for deer at this time of year to do that.”


For Carl, taking pictures of wildlife came naturally; he’s always loved spending time outdoors.


“I grew up hunting and fishing, but I sold my guns and bows for a down payment on a lens and now I can shoot a hundred thousand deer and not be arrested, no seasons, no license, and I can be out here all the time. Not many people can make a living at something that they really love. This is a dream.”


When Carl started to make a living from his pictures, he and Jean bought a second camera so she could join him in the field. Most of their pictures are taken near their home at a park in southeast Michigan. And over the past twenty years, Carl and Jean seem to have developed a rapport with the creatures they photograph.


(Sound of camera)


“Okay, ready?”


Jean coaxes a wing-flap out of a female swan as if she was a fashion model.


“Okay, let’s do it.”


(Sound of camera snapping)


STOICK: “Wasn’t she perfect?”


NEBBE: “Exactly on cue.”


STOICK: “Exactly on cue.”


For many years, they sold prints of their work to magazines, calendars, greeting card companies, and on the art show circuit. Then recently, they decided to create a book about white-tailed deer. But as they were selecting their pictures, Jean’s imagination took them in another direction.


“I noticed that we had an awful lot of good images of the deer and birds interacting with a particular snowman that we had built three years earlier. So I mentioned to Carl, I says, ‘You know, why not do a children’s book? It would be a whole lot more fun.'”


That first book became the best-selling children’s book Stranger in the Woods. Their second book, Lost in the Woods, is the story of a fawn alone in the forest. All of the animals it encouters worry that the fawn is lost, but in the end, we learn its mother leaves the baby alone because it has no scent and won’t attract predators. She’s free to forage for food and come back later to take care of her fawn.


The pictures are meant to be beautiful and the book fun to read, but Carl and Jean are hoping the readers will remember what they learn.


“The lost fawn concept is a mistake that people make over and over every spring. They unintentionally rescue fawns that they think have been abandoned, and children are good messengers.”


The couple is working to spread their message with visits to elementary schools and libraries. That fills a lot of their days, but almost every morning and every evening, they can be found doing what they love to do most: taking pictures.


“It’s amazing how graceful she is. I think sometimes she likes to pose. Here she comes again.”


For the GLRC, I’m Charity Nebbe.

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Land Swap: Steel Mill Jobs for Forests?

  • The expansion of an existing steel mill could mean more jobs but less forest. (Photo courtesy of AmericasLibrary.gov)

Everybody has different ideas about how land ought to be used. Lately, the fight’s been about whether to allow expanding retail development on farmland. But a different fight’s going on right now, too. It’s a fight between two long-time rivals – heavy industry and open space. It’s also about jobs and preservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:

Transcript

Everybody has different ideas about how land ought
to be used. Lately, the fight’s been about whether to allow
expanding retail development on farmland. But a different
fight’s going on right now, too. It’s a fight between two
long-time rivals – heavy industry and open space. It’s also
about jobs and preservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Shawn Allee has this report:


(Sound of train)


The town of Riverdale’s a kind of industrial crossroads. It’s near a Great Lakes port, heavy trucks lumber through its streets, and in some areas, rail crossings are as common as stop signs. At one time, this village just south of Chicago was known for more than just moving industrial goods – thosands of workers used to make things here, especially steel.


(Sound of birds)


Today, there are only a few hundred steel jobs left in Riverdale. Most are at one plant that sits near a stretch of Cook County Forest Preserve, a place called Whistler Woods. The remaining steel mill wants to expand. It wants to swap twenty one acres of Whistler Woods for thirty one acres of its own wooded land. Supporters hope the move will bring jobs to the town.


Jim Bush grew up in the area and is with the region’s chamber of commerce. He supports the deal, saying the area is fighting for its economic future.


“So you can see, it’s pretty hard to keep your schools up to standards and all your city services when you’re faced with a declining tax base.”


Bush says this is urgent. The Riverdale plant was recently bought out by Mittal Steel, the world’s largest steel company. Bush says to keep the mill attractive to the new owners, the county needs to make the company happy now.


“Mittal USA has plants all around the world. If they don’t do this expansion here, they’re talking about taking it to Ohio. We can’t let other states take business away from Illinois without doing something.”


Besides, he says, critics of the land swap should just do the math.


“Thirty-one acres for twenty-one acres. Sounds like a no-brainer to the business community.”


But not everyone’s buying into that calculation. To understand why, I meet with Benjamin Cox. He’s with Friends of the Forest Preserves, an advocacy group. Cox and I are traveling along the bike path leading to the field the company wants to acquire.


“As you’re walking along here, you can hear many, many birds. We just saw some deer. There are wonderful native plants here.”


Cox says the forest preserve district could use an extra ten acres, but the company’s offering land that’s half a mile away and across a river. Cox says that land won’t help these woods. He also doesn’t have much faith in the company’s new owners.


“The part of this that nobody’s talked about yet is that they have not committed to actually bring these jobs here or do this project.”


The company confirms this, saying it can’t make promises about jobs even if it could expand the plant. Cox adds the proposal flies in the face of Forest Preserves history. During the past ninety years, it’s only sold or traded land a handful of times and the last time it did, it go burned. A few years ago, it let go of two acres so Rosemont, a Chicago suburb, could build a casino parking lot. The parking lot got built, but the casino project never got started.


Now Cox fears if this deal goes through, it’ll be open season on Forest Preserve land.


“As soon as you start nibbling away at the corners, a little acre here, a little acre there, twenty acres here. All of a sudden, it’s ‘You did it for them, you should do it for me.'”


The plan’s supporters say they don’t want to sell off the preserves, they just want a little flexibility.


Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims represents Riverdale and surrounding communities. She says opponents are typically from more affluent parts of the county, places that have an easy time attracting new businesses. There, she says,


“All you have to do is build a few houses and everybody will come. We don’t have that luxury. So, any economic development we have, we can’t afford to lose.”


So the land swap seems a small price to pay for a little economic security.


A tall chain-link fence separates the woods from the Riverdale steel plant. Despite the division, both parcels of land have something in common – their boosters are motivated by fear.


The area’s steel industry is, in many ways, a diminishing, precious resource. The Cook County Forest Preserve District also faces a crossroads, but a more political one. It holds tens of thousands of acres of open land, but it’s not clear whether it can always fend off demands made by a land-hungry economy.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Artist Teaches Kids Environmental Awareness

  • Gijsbert van Frankenhuysen helps kids not only appreciate art, but nature as well. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

A children’s book illustrator is taking his art to schools around the region. Through his illustrations, he’s teaching students about respecting the environment. But they also get excited about learning in general. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

A children’s book illustrator is taking his art to schools
around the region. Through his illustrations, he’s teaching students
about respecting the environment. But they also get excited about
learning in general. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus
reports:


30 children are sitting on the floor with sketch pads in their elementary school classroom. They’re watching artist Gijsbert van Frankenhuysen. He’s standing at an easel, drawing animal shapes.


(Sound of magic marker)


“So we’re gonna make an oval shape right here, with 2 ears on it. And then you can color it black and you give him 4 short black legs. Make sure you make em black. That’s what they have. Look at that. One sheep.”


The children look up at the easel, then back down at their sketch pads, then up at the easel again. They’re comparing drawings to see whose come closest to the artist’s drawing, and they want Van Frankenhuysen to show them how to add body parts to the sheep.


“What do you want me to show?”


“Tails!”


“Hooves!”


Van Frankenhuysen has spent the whole day at this school.


(Sound of applause)


He gets this kind of response everywhere he goes, and he visits about a hundred schools a year. This student, Emily has just seen, step by step, how the artist turned blank pages into the beginnings of a book. He’s already illustrated childrens favorites like Adopted by an Owl, the Legend of Sleeping Bear and 16 other books.


Child: “I learned about aminals.”


McCarus: “What about them?”


Child: “That they’re cool to make.”


McCarus: “Do you ever see any of the animals out in nature outside?”


Child: “I see horses and cows and owls at night. And I hear ’em by my house.”


(Sound of sheep)


Back at his home on a farm in central Michigan, Van Frankenhuysen’s wife Robin walks through the barnyard past the sheep and horse the artist uses for painting. She roams the property trying to call him in to the house for dinner.


(Sound of whistling)


But he doesn’t hear her. Since they bought this farm 25 years ago they planted thousands of trees and made 3 ponds. There are lots of places to hide. But it’s not like the couple is trying to get away from people and be alone in nature. They’re happy putting them into one big mix.


It wasn’t until a couple days later that we finally caught up with van Frankenhuysen. He doesn’t miss the chance to show kids the wonders of nature. He says learning about it can make classroom lessons easy.


“I have boys, young boys, that normally don’t do any journaling, because they thing it’s for girls. And then they see what I do. And I write down the stuff that happens on the land. If I find a birdnest, I make a drawing of it, I put it in my book, I write it in. A deer, a fox, anything that I see. And now those stories are kind of turning in to books that we sell. And I’ve had several kids that now they’re doing it. And I don’t know if in the back of their mind, they’re thinking maybe I can make a book out of this when I grow up. It doesn’t matter! They’re paying attention. They’re writing this stuff down. I think it’s all good stuff.”


Many states are cutting education budgets. Often art is the first program to go. But state education association spokeswoman Margaret Trimer-Hartley says parents demand art. Learning it creates interest in science, literature and even math. She says van Frankenhuysen makes children better students overall. He supplements what regular teachers might not be able to provide.


“His work has given all of us an appreciation for nature and the flora and the fauna around us. Now his lessons can give us all a greater appreciation for the issues of conservation and protection of that environment.”


The warm, playful illustrations in his books touch both children and parents. In person, van Frankenhuysen is just as disarming. He’s modest when he explains why he goes into classrooms to teach kids to draw year after year.


“It’s the only thing I know how to do. I don’t know anything else. It’s painting. It’s fun.”


It really isn’t the only thing he knows how to do. His drawings are just the beginning. The trick he’s mastered is to get kids to start thinking about themselves and their environment.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

Chronic Wasting Disease Found in New York

  • Chronic wasting disease is affecting many captive deer, and has now been found in New York. Some question whether the disease has spread to wild deer. (Photo by Dr. Beth Williams, University of Wyoming, courtesy of CWD Alliance)

Chronic Wasting Disease has now been found in New York
and officials there are killing and testing hundreds of wild deer. They’re trying to keep the fatal brain disease from spreading to other animals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Chronic Wasting Disease has now been found in New York and officials there
are killing and testing hundreds of wild deer. They’re trying to keep the
fatal brain disease from spreading to other animals. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


Five captive deer in central New York tested positive for chronic wasting
disease earlier this month. It was the first time the neurological sickness
appeared in the Northeast.


Officials’ biggest concern is whether the ailment has spread to the wild. That’s why they’re killing and sampling up to 420 wild deer near where the
disease was detected.


Ward Stone is New York’s lead wildlife pathologist. He says those measures
are important, but they may not help in the long term.


“It would be nice if we could eradicate it in the next few weeks and it
doesn’t take hold, but I think it’s here to stay and I would not be
surprised to one day see it from Boston to Los Angeles.”


Chronic wasting disease has been found in 12 states, including Wisconsin and
Illinois. There’s no evidence it affects humans. Still, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention recommends against eating meat from infected
deer.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Deer Devouring Wild Ginseng

  • As deer populations increase, the amount of vegetation they consume also increases. Included in their diet is the endangered wild ginseng. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Researchers say deer populations are threatening wild ginseng. They say the therapeutic herb could disappear from the American landscape within the next century. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills has more:

Transcript

Researchers say deer populations are threatening wild ginseng.
They say the therapeutic herb could disappear from the American landscape
within the next century. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane
Mills has more:


Ginseng is a wild herb believed to boost energy and improve
concentration. The plant inhabits eastern deciduous forests from Maine to
Georgia.


James McGraw is a biologist at West Virginia University. He studied the
health of wild ginseng plants over the course of four years, and published his
findings in the journal Science. He found that increasing deer
populations threaten to eventually wipe out the plant.


“What we found was that populations were depressed because affects
of browsing. They weren’t reproducing; plants would begin to die and they
weren’t recruiting new plants into the population.”


McGraw says maintaining the wild herb is not only important for
ecological reasons. It’s also important to people who depend on it for
income; wild ginseng roots sell for hundreds of dollars a pound.


To control the deer population, McGraw suggests a change in hunting regulations or introducing more deer predators.


For the GLRC, I’m Shamane Mills.

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How Far Will Dow Chemical Cleanup Go?

For years, a big chemical company has been negotiating
with government officials on cleaning up an area contaminated with dioxin. Environmentalists say Dow Chemical has used its power and influence to drag out the talks. The chemical company has agreed to plan for some kind of clean-up… but it’s still not clear how far that clean-up will go. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:

Transcript

For years, a big chemical company has been negotiating
with government officials on cleaning up an area contaminated
with dioxin. Environmentalists say Dow Chemical has used its
power and influence to drag out the talks. The chemical company
has agreed to plan for some kind of clean-up… but it’s still
not clear how far that clean-up will go. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:


Dow Chemical is a huge employer in Michigan, it employs almost 60 thousand people, not including outside suppliers. In a state that has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, a big company like Dow is important. The state of Michigan has been negotiating with Dow for nearly a decade over cleaning up dioxin downstream from the company’s big plant in the central part of the state. Just recently Dow and the state struck a deal on the next phase of coming up with a clean-up plan. But it’s not clear how long it will take to design the plan and it’s not clear exactly how far the plan will go to clean up the contamination.


The people who live in the floodplain of the Titabawassee River, downstream from the Dow Chemical plant in Midland, Michigan, say they’ve waited long enough for a cleanup plan. Almost a decade has passed since dioxin was first discovered in the river sediment.


(sound of river)


At Immerman Park in the town of Freeland, downriver from Dow, signs dot the riverbank. They warn parents to keep their children from playing here, because there’s dioxin in the soil.


(sound of hand-washing)


An earlier agreement with the state led Dow to put handwashing stations up here for children to clean up after playing in the dirt. Mary Whitney lives nearby. She says the sinks and faucets in the hand-washing stations are too high and too complicated for children to use, and they’re located too far from the banks of the river. She doesn’t think the kids are getting the dioxin contamination off their hands let alone off their shoes and clothes. She says it’s typical of how the dioxin question’s being handled in Michigan.


“It’s like, well, let’s do a little bit to show we’re doing something, but let’s not maybe address the whole issue. We’ll do just a little but to keep the peace and to keep everybody from not getting so much up in arms. But I think, they’re trying to do, Dow is, trying to do some things to help. But it’s just putting a little Band-Aid on the whole issue. It’s not fixing the main problem.”


For decades one of the by-products of the chemicals Dow produced was dioxin. It’s believed dioxin has been in the soil around Midland since the early 20th century. The fact that dioxin contaminated the sediment along the river downstream was only discovered within the last decade.


Studies have linked dioxin to health problems, including cancer and damage to the nervous system. The state says dioxin has spread to the environment round the Titabawassee River to the point that it issued warnings to hunters to limit how much wild game they eat from the area. That’s because the state says deer, squirrels and other game might be contaminated with dioxin.


Dow and its supporters say the risks posed by dioxin are being overstated. Dow officials say there’s no evidence that the dioxin levels in the Titabawassee floodplain pose a threat to the public health. Dow researcher Jim Collins says the company has six decades of research on employees who’ve been exposed to high levels of dioxin, and the worst health effect is a mild form of chloracne in some of the company’s employees.


Chloracne is the skin condition that disfigured Ukraine’s president, Victor Yushchenko, after he was poisoned by a large dose of dioxin.


“We’ve studied heart disease, diabetes, immunologic effects, reproductive effects, and cancer. And other than some increased risk of chloracne in these workers, we find no health effects that have been related to dioxin exposures.”


Backers of the company say critics should be careful about calling for penalizing Dow. Janee Valesquez is the the local economic development group “Midland Tomorrow.” She says Dow’s impact on the local economy amounts to almost a billion dollars a year.


“So Dow is absolutely… an anchor for mid-Michigan.”


Businesses and workers don’t want to damage relations with the chemical giant. Jim Ballard is an economist at Michigan State University. He says there is some risk that Dow could abandon Michigan. Texas is the new home of the chemical industry, he says, because energy’s cheap and it doesn’t burden industry with a lot of environmental regulations.


“I think Dow might consider leaving if they felt the business regulatory climate in Michigan was excessively onerous. On the hand, it would be very costly for them to leave. They’ve got a large investment in infrastructure and human capital in the Midland area, and to reverse would be a decision that I’m sure they would not take lightly.”


But critics of how the dioxing clean-up has been handled think the economic concerns should not be more important than the health risks to people who live nearby – people such as Mary Whitney. She and others filed a lawsuit seeking a lifetime of medical tests paid for by Dow. That case is before the state Supreme Court. Whitney says she’s afraid a cleanup plan will get bogged down in talks, or delayed by studies.


“We want them to clean it up. Take responsibility for what they’ve done and clean it up and make it safe for all of us. Now I’m not sure what all that would entail. Surely maybe dredging the river to make it deeper. Shoring up the shores, so it doesn’t flood any longer. And fill in the yards with clean soil. And that’s going to be a big thing to do.”


Many critics of the state’s handling of the dioxin clean-up believe anything less than an extensive clean-up is putting business and jobs ahead of the health of the people in Midland and downstream along the Titabawassee River.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.

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Feral Pigs Run for the Border

  • Feral pigs have become a nuisance in Wisconsin, and DNR officials fear that if their numbers do not decrease, they will do a significant amount of damage. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin DNR)

Ag officials are tracking a big pig problem across Wisconsin. Since 1999, growing numbers of feral swine have appeared across the state. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports, officials now fear the spread of the wild pigs:

Transcript

Ag officials are tracking a big pig problem across Wisconsin. Since 1999, growing numbers of feral swine have appeared across the state. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports, officials now fear the spread of the wild pigs:


The woolly porkers have appeared in 23 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. They’re damaging crops, digging out ground-nesting birds, and killing small deer. They may also cary pseudorabies and swine brucellosis, threatening domestic pigs.


Wayne Edgerton is agricultural policy director of Minnesota’s DNR. He says the problem could easily spread into his territory.


“They can certainly walk across the ice, so this time of the year they can come across to Minnesota. And I’ve heard they’re actually good swimmers. So even in summertime, they could get their way over to northern Minnesota.”


Some people have speculated that Minnesota’s intense winters would kill off any feral swine crossing the border. But Tim DeVeau, a veterinary medical officer of the USDA, says that’s unlikely.


“As long as they’ve got food, and they’re gonna put fat on, they’ll be well-insulated.”


DeVeau adds that in order to keep wild pigs’ numbers under control, at least 75% of the population has to be destroyed every year. He says that’s not happening.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brian Bull.

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Hunter Contracts Disease From Deer

  • Humans can contract bovine tuberculosis. In most cases, people get bovine TB from drinking unpasteurized milk. A spokesman from the Michigan Department of Community Health says contracting bovine TB from deer is rare. (Photo by Kia Abell)

In a rare event, a Michigan hunter has been diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis. Health officials are using the case to call for greater vigilance among hunters and farmers who could be exposed to the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:

Transcript

In a rare event, a Michigan hunter has been diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis. Health officials are using the case to call for greater vigilance among hunters and farmers who could be exposed to the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


The northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula has been under quarantine since bovine TB was found in wild deer in 1994. It was later found in some of the area’s cow herds. The strain of bovine TB in Michigan is unique to that state, and this is only the second time it has been found in a human. The hunter caught the disease when he cut his hand while dressing an infected deer. T.J. Bucholz is a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health. He says humans are vulnerable to bovine TB, but this case is unusual.


“This does occur, most often in people that consume unpasteurized milk, people can also be infected when you’re in close contact with live animals. This particular hunter’s direct contamination through a wound, so it’s a fairly rare occurrence.”


Other states in the Great Lakes are currently considered bovine TB-free. The disease was found in 1991 in captive elk herds in Wisconsin, but those herds have since been destroyed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Recent Deer Hunts Help Feed the Poor

  • Overpopulation of deer is causing problems for forest understory, farmers, and increased car/deer accidents. Some programs are encouraging hunters to take an extra deer and donating the meat to charity. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer-and-car crashes. Too many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people. That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde
reports:

Transcript

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are
still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer and car crashes. Too
many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer
overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people.
That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get
venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde reports:


It’s only been in the last decade or so that states have begun allowing hunters to donate
wild game to charitable organizations. In New York, meat processors and hunters started
the Venison Donation Coalition in 1998. Starting out, they gave a thousand pounds of
deer meat to food pantries in two counties.


Kathy Balbierer handles the coalition’s public relations. She says since that first thousand
pound donation, the program has grown…


“Last year, we had 108,000 pounds of venison donated, which on the average is, you
know – a deer is 40 pounds. It was approximately 27,000 deer. This year we have 119
participating processors throughout the state serving 52 counties.”


It’s an idea that hunters and meat processors across the nation are embracing. There are
venison donation programs in almost every state. Some, such as those in New York and
Illinois, are administered by state government. Others, like Michigan’s and Minnesota’s,
are run by private organizations.


Here’s how it works. First, a hunter who wants to donate meat takes it to a participating
processor. Ed Tanguey operates a meat processing facility in Kirkville, New York. He
says it’s a pretty simple process.


“Once the hunters show up to the building, we’ll have them come into our skinning room.
We’ll have them fill out some paperwork and once it’s brought in, we’ll start to skin the
deer, remove the hide and trim off any meat that’s not edible. We’ll bring the deer into
our cutting room.”


Butchers section the deer into shoulder, torso and hindquarters.


(sound of grinder starting up)


Then Tanguey sets up the grinder and grabs the meat from the cooler.


He packs the ground meat into five-pound black-and-white tubes and slaps a label on
with his name and the hunter’s license number on it.


Tanguey has processed 250 deer so far this season, 44 of them for the Venison Donation
Coalition. The coalition pays him a reduced rate, about a dollar a pound. Once there’s
enough meat in Tanguey’s cooler, he calls the Food Bank of Central New York to pick it
up.


Tanguey says this is his way of giving back to his community.


“When I see a hunter bringing in his son or grandson and they’re giving a second deer or
a third deer to the food bank, I think it’s going to pass it on to them. And years from now
we’ll keep the coalition supplied with some more food for the food bank.”


Jim Giacando is operations manager at the Food Bank of Central New York. He says
200 of the 600 agencies he works with ask for venison.


“In our freezer, we have almost 1,000 lbs ready to distribute, and it’s already committed
to a number of agencies throughout our 11-county area. And we’ll be distributing it this
week and next week, and then hopefully we’ll receive more in and fill more orders.”


The food bank will receive venison up until January. But Giacando says the greatest
challenge is keeping up with the demand for deer meat. A lot of people want it.


“I think we actually may have to get to a point where we might have to say ‘you know,
you can’t order that much. We have to keep it for all the other programs.'”


(ambient sound in church)


One of the food pantries asking for the deer meat is the University United Methodist
Church in Syracuse, New York. Norma Goel ordered venison from Giacando’s food
bank. The church’s food pantry feeds about 150 people every week.


Goel says she can’t buy as much food for the pantry as she’d like to because of the
church’s limited budget and an increase in the number of poor people asking for food.
She says farm-raised meat is a high-priced commodity…


“We’re always looking for a way to provide meat to participants in the pantry. And it’s
become increasingly difficult to buy frozen meat that the food bank has. By and large,
we’re not purchasing frozen meat from the food bank because we can’t afford it.”


So the deer meat is a cheaper alternative. Last year, Goel ordered venison too late to
receive any. This year she got all she could for the pantry: 60 pounds. She only has to
pay the handling costs – the coalition covers processing.


Goel says she’ll encourage people to use the deer meat in place of ground beef because
it’s high in protein and low in fat. She says the 60 pounds will feed a lot of hungry people
in her community.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Skye Rohde.

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