Deer Birth Control

  • Gardiner Joe Williamson says sterilization does nothing to solve the immediate problem of too many deer. (Photo courtesy of Adam Allington)

Whitetail deer have adapted pretty well to the suburbs. But… it means a lot of car-deer accidents. It also means deer munching on tulips and shrubs. Some people consider them pests and want to get rid of the deer. But instead of simply killing them, one city has decided to capture and sterilize a number of does.
Adam Allington reports, the results might point toward the future of urban wildlife management.

Transcript

Whitetail deer have adapted pretty well to the suburbs.

But… it means a lot of car-deer accidents. It also means deer munching on tulips and shrubs. Some people consider them pests and want to get rid of the deer.

But instead of simply killing them, one city has decided to capture and sterilize a number of does.

Adam Allington reports, the results might point toward the future of urban wildlife management.

It’s a crisp night in Town and Country, Missouri…home to some 10,000 souls…and about 800 deer.

“There goes a deer over there, it’s just to the left of the tree, you can barely see it.”

Joel Porath is a wildlife regional supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Just like humans, whitetails he says, are right at home in the quiet cul du sacs of suburbia.

“They have all the food resources, they don’t have hunting and they don’t really have predators, so mainly vehicles are what kill them in communities like this.”

Lynn Wright sits on Town and Country’s board of aldermen. Despite the accidents she says most folks like seeing the deer around…kind of reminding them that they don’t live in the city.

“But when you start going from 2 or 3 and seeing 10 or 12 in the backyard you do start getting concerned about that.”

The car accidents were a problem, but Wright says people also complained about damaged trees and landscaping. Still, the town resisted the easiest solution—to just hire sharpshooters to come in and kill all the deer.

Instead, they explored alternative methods…this is sound from a department of conservation video…it shows four deer eating corn in a back yard…just then, a large dropnet is released…sending them into a flailing frenzy until technicians rush in with tranquilizer shots.

The deer are then brought to Steve Timm. Timm is a veterinarian with White Buffalo Incorporated. Its a company that specializes in sterilizing deer.

“We’ve got two does coming in. We’re going to sterilize them by removing ovaries.”

Timm operates out of a small eight by sixteen foot trailer… When the does arrive they’re hoisted on to an operating table and prepped for surgery.

“I’ve located the left ovary here, and so I’ll clamp it, bring it to the surface, use cautery to prevent any bleeding.”

The whole process takes about 20 minutes. The deer are then stapled up, fitted with reflective collars and released.

Timm says the theory is simple—fewer fauns mean less deer eating shrubs and running into cars.

“The early information suggests, that if there are some deer in the environment, especially our sterile does, the other deer have less tendency to move in.”

But not everyone backs the sterilization approach.

Joe Williamson is a retiree who loves to garden. Walking around his yard he points out flowering magnolias, yews, Japanese maples…basically, a kind of all-night deer buffet.

“This is a good example of antler rubs, this is called Staghorn Sumac. The bucks rub their antlers on here and they break them off, you see all these…its just wrecked.”

Williamson says sterilization does nothing to solve the immediate problem of too many deer. It’s also much more expensive. Town and Country paid White Buffalo 150-thousand dollars to sterilize 112 does, and kill another 100.

But, Joel Porath of the Department of Conservation says in the end, the best solution may involve sterilizing some deer…and killing others.

“Could you imagine if we stopped allowing deer hunting in the state? You know we kill around 300,000 dear each year and it doesn’t take very long for the population to jump back up. So, they do need to continue to do something in Town and Country down the road.”

By the end of spring Porath says the department should have enough information to see if sterilization makes sense for other suburban areas.

For The Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

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Chlorine Carted Out of Canada

  • A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:

A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State.

The company says it’s part of a long-planned renovation of the chemical plant. Environmental groups suspect the rail shipments were timed to move tanks away from the Olympics.

Fred Millar is watching this development for Friends of the Earth. Millar says terrorists have shown interest in rail cars filled with chlorine gas.

“And that’s what people are mostly worried about because just one chlorine tank car could put out a cloud over any city at a lethal level that’s 15 miles long by 4 miles wide.”

US rail companies make 100,000 shipments of chlorine and similar toxic chemicals per year. Their safety record has largely been good, but accidents have released deadly chlorine gas.

One derailment in South Carolina killed nine people.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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New ‘Deer Crossing’ Technology

  • The Colorado Department of Transportation is trying out a new system to detect deer about to cross the highway (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Every year there are about 1.5 million
deer-car accidents. Now highway officials are
testing a new system to cut down on those
accidents. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Every year there are about 1.5 million
deer-car accidents. Now highway officials are
testing a new system to cut down on those
accidents. Rebecca Williams has more:

There are some animal detection systems that use lasers or infrared motion
sensors. But those systems can be tripped by tumbleweeds or small animals.

In Colorado, highway officials are testing a new device.

Nancy Shanks is with the Colorado Department of Transportation. She says
they’ve buried cables along each side of the highway. The cables emit an
electromagnetic field. When an animal crosses a cable a warning sign with a
picture of a jumping deer lights up.

“It will detect a change in the field to the tune of a large animal. The system
will not pick up a smaller animal – a skunk or a rabbit, mouse.”

This cable system isn’t cheap. The pilot project costs 1.2 million dollars.

But Shanks says if this system works out, the price should come down a bit
over time.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Ghostbikes: Two-Wheeled Memorials

  • With more cyclists on the road, there is concern about keeping accident rates from going up as well (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

There’s a grass roots effort to
honor people killed while riding bicycles.
It’s called “ghostbikes”. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

There’s a grass roots effort to
honor people killed while riding bicycles.
It’s called “ghostbikes”. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Only a tiny number of bicyclists are hit and killed. But some riders say the death toll should be
zero.

So, in about sixty communities across the US, bicycle groups are painting bikes all white. Then
they chain them to a post near the site of the bicycle fatality.

Rider Jessica Weinberg compares the skeleton-looking ghostbikes to white crosses placed where
people die in motorized vehicles.

“I think anyone who drives on the highway when they see a cross on the side of the road, that
does kind of make you think for a minute, ‘should I drive a little more carefully here, there was a
tragedy here, what was the situation?’ We want the same thing with the ghostbikes.”

Weinberg says with high gas prices putting more bikers on the road, ghostbikes may help keep
accident rates from going up.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Living on Top of a Fuel Pipeline

  • Shelley Miller stands by one of the markers in her backyard that shows where a pipeline is located. Miller has two pipelines in her backyard and two others just beyond her property line in the neighbor's yard. (Photo by Tom Weber)

There are thousands of miles of pipelines in the U.S. constantly shuttling gas, oil, and other fuels from state to state. And although you might not realize the pipes might be under your property, the companies that own them have to keep the land above the pipes clear in case of an emergency. And over the past year, residents in some communities have been told they need to dig up trees and remove sheds to keep the path clear. In some cases, it’s more than just an inconvenience. It’s costly. But the homeowners aren’t all mad at the pipeline companies. They’re mad at the people who built their houses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

There are thousands of miles of pipelines in the U.S., constantly shuttling gas, oil, and other fuels
from state to state. And although you might not realize the pipes might be under your property,
the companies that own them have to keep the land above the pipes clear in case of an
emergency. And over the past year, residents in some communities have been told they need to
dig up trees and remove sheds to keep the path clear. In some cases, it’s more than just an
inconvenience. It’s costly. But the homeowners aren’t all mad at the pipeline companies. They’re
mad at the people who built their houses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber
reports:


Pipelines are a crucial link in the trip gasoline makes from the refinery to your car. They
crisscross the country, but most people don’t notice them.


Shelley Miller didn’t notice for years, even though she sleeps less than 30 feet from four of them
under her and her neighbors’ yard.


They carry gasoline, natural gas, heating oil and jet fuel.


In fact, more than 20-thousand gallons of fuel will race under Miller’s yard in St. Louis suburb of
St. Peters, Missouri by the time this story is over. She and her husband knew the pipes were there
when they bought the house… but they thought they were used for water or sewage.


The Millers didn’t realize they were wrong until last year… when Explorer Pipeline Company
came to make sure the land above its pipe was easily accessible.


For Miller, that meant two trees had to be removed, along with a shed that had become her
backyard’s equivalent of a kitchen junk drawer.


“We had planned to re-side our home. So we have siding we purchased one bit at a time to get to
that point. We don’t know where we’re going to put that. The lawn tractors, where we going to
put that? Where you going to move all this stuff?”


But that’s a small price to pay to make sure pipeline crews can get in fast if there’s an emergency.


Fred Low is a lawyer for Explorer Pipeline. He says companies like his have made an extra effort
in recent years to clear more urban or developed areas that have pipelines…


“In our industry, there have been some accidents in the past. There’s been national attention and
we want to do a better job. And to do a better job of running our pipeline we have to do a better
job maintaining our pipeline.”


And Miller understands that. She’s not mad at the companies because the pipelines were there
first. What upsets her is that 35 years ago, the city allowed the homes to be built so close to the
pipes.


More than 160 homes in St. Peters, Missouri have at least one pipeline in their backyard. But
Alderman Jerry Hollingsworth says it’s hard to blame the city.


“There were no guidelines for a city on how close to build a home next to a pipeline 35 years
ago. So somebody came in and said, ‘I’m going to build some houses in here’ and the city said
‘okay!'”


And many towns across the country did the same thing. Todd Swanstrom teaches Public Policy
at Saint Louis University. He says more and more suburbs might have to deal with pipelines as
they keep growing. Adding a subdivision or even a strip mall sounds nice if it adds to tax
revenue. But there’s also safety to think about…


“If there were an explosion and people lost their lives from a pipeline, I think it would be a very
different situation. As it is, it seems to be one of those issues that has largely gone under the
radar.”


But even if every growing suburb in the U.S. had rules for building on pipelines, there could still
be accidents… or deaths.


Ivel, Kentucky, San Jose, California and Whitehall, Pennsylvania are among communities where
pipelines have exploded in the past few years.


But Explorer Pipelines’ Fred Low says overall, pipeline companies have had an impressive safety
record.


“Being next to a pipeline isn’t necessarily that bad. There are literally millions of people who live
by pipelines. And we will not let structures be built on our easements, so that’s why we want to
keep them visible so we can find out if we’re being encroached upon.”


Since the St. Peters pipelines were laid in 1971, the city’s population has exploded and expanded
along the pipelines.


For Shelley Miller… her efforts now focus on raising awareness for others. She and her neighbors
have organized a group that pushes cities and towns to enact better rules for how land around the
pipes is developed, and how people are told of the lines before they buy a house.


St. Peters now has a law restricting development around pipelines. But that only does so much
for Miller as she goes to bed every night just a few feet from all that gasoline.


“When we hear a loud boom, yeah, we sit up in bed. We think about it. There’s a risk with
everything you do in life, but when you have to live with it on a 24/7 basis and you don’t know
what the next minute’s gonna bring, it stays on your mind.”


For the GLRC, I’m Tom Weber.

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