Since when were deer New Yorkers?
Deer are becoming increasingly common on streets such as at Harbor and Hitherbrook roads in Head of the Harbor, as well as in neighboring Nissequogue. Credit: Alexandra Leighton
No, deer are not “New Yorkers.”
They’re not “commuters.”
They’re not our neighbors.
We’re not looking to make them seem warm and cuddly. We don’t want to see them assimilate. We’d like them off of our streets, out of our backyards and out of our swimming pools.
And they’re not actually New Yorkers either. The original settlers swam over here from New Jersey.
We want to be rid of them. We’ve wanted it for years.
Is there some kind of disconnect with the city over this? We thought that the de Blasio administration was with us in this effort to eradicate the deer population as much as we can.
But this ad campaign that we’ve been seeing lately on the sides of city buses and elsewhere makes us wonder.
You’ve probably seen these ads too, cutesy pictures of deer labeling them as “New Yorkers” and “commuters.”
The posters are part of a public safety campaign to caution us drivers to watch out during “deer rush hour,” which coincides with our human evening commute. It can be even more dangerous at this time of the year, when it gets darker sooner. The October to January rutting season for white-tail deer adds its own complications to the equation as well.
On the one hand, the city has been doing what Staten Islanders have been asking them to do. They have put up warning signs about the deer at a number of spots across the borough (after much begging on our part). They are trying to cull the herd by performing vasectomies on male deer here (even if some folks have questioned the focus on male deer instead of females).
All well and good. But why would the city feel the need to go out of its way to make deer seem all warm and fuzzy as part of a public safety campaign? An expanding deer population is actually a threat, or at least something that needs controlling. They are a danger to motorists no matter how slow you’re driving. They destroy natural habitats by their grazing. They’re not meant to be in close quarters with humans, at least not in a semi-suburban environment like we have here on the Island.
There have been 45 collisions between deer and vehicles reported here so far this year. There were 40 all of last year. So there’s reason to be concerned.
And the problem isn’t going away. One motorist told us that they’ve seen increasing numbers of deer close to the roadway around Exit 13 of the Staten Island Expressway. Apparently, there’s a watering hole of sorts on the Brooklyn-bound side that the deer like to congregate at.
So warnings are the right way to go. But a cutesy approach isn’t striking the right tone. We don’t want to make it seem like the deer are our friends or are anything like welcome guests. The streets of Staten Island aren’t a petting zoo environment. We don’t want to normalize the presence of deer by making them look adorable.
On top of that the whole thing is a bit dehumanizing as well. The city would equate us to deer? I’m a New Yorker. I’m a commuter.
A deer is not.
