City and county meet about urban deer management plan

Havre Mayor Doug Kaercher met with the Hill County Commission Monday morning to discuss the city’s plans for urban deer management and seek the commission’s support.

Kaercher said the plan is still in draft stages at this point, but it has been sent to members of the city council was well as Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and he hasn’t heard any objections to it yet.

He said this year’s plan would only apply within city limits, but the county owns adjacent land so he wanted to keep them informed and hoped they would support the plan.

“A healthy, wild deer population is important to the people of Havre,” the draft plan says. “Wildlife viewing is an aesthetic value that will be preserved. However, high deer numbers and the habits of some individual animals within the City of Havre and the interface between the City and adjacent rural areas can create a situation that threatens human safety, damages property and is not conducive to the long-term health of the deer population or its habitat.”

The issue of deer inside city limits has been one of increasing concern in Havre and calls for the city to do more have grown over the past few years, which prompted the city to hold a town hall last week about the problem, the most well-attended town hall the city has had since they began having them at the start of 2022.

At the meeting, FWP Region 6 Biologist Scott Hemmer led the presentation, talking about other cities and towns around Montana and the plans they’ve put in place to deal with their own deer issues, plans that he said most people seem satisfied with.

Hemmer stressed that these plans will almost certainly not eliminate the problem completely, and the effects of the plans usually aren’t seen until they’ve been implement for a few years, but they can be effective at reducing deer populations and the complaints and damage that comes with them.

At Monday’s meeting, Kaercher said he’s spoken to people in the communities with these plans and while many feel they have helped he also talked to many who didn’t feel there had been much of a change, so he was worried about spending city dollars amid that uncertainty.

However, he said, the attendance of the meeting, which he was very pleased with, and what was said by the public indicated how much the public wants something done, and in Havre’s case they won’t know how effective the plan will be until they try it.

In addition to the city’s efforts to educate people on why feeding deer is bad for them and for the city, two big elements of the plan being proposed are allowing hunters to get permits to bow hunt the dear within certain areas of the city and trapping them in the areas where they can’t be hunted.

“(Artificial feeding) encourages them to stay near or return to the city,” the draft plan reads. “ ... Pursuit to MCA 87-3-130, it is a misdemeanor violation to feed deer. It is also a violation of Havre city ordinance 8-5-21. In addition, the diet is unhealthy, and the practice induces the deer to adopt habits that put them in conflict with humans and ultimately means these deer must be destroyed.”

Kaercher said bow hunting is something that would only be permitted on open-space properties, so nobody is going for be allowed to shoot deer in residential areas for safety reasons, but there are some wide open areas in the outer parts of Havre that could be safe for bow hunting the animals.

He said land owners would have to give permission for that hunting to be done, of course, and the city, after approving any given property for hunting, would keep a list of areas where hunting with a license is permitted.

The second big element of the population control plan is trapping, which isn’t included in the draft plan yet, but Kaercher said they intend to put it in.

He said because there will ultimately only be a small amount of land in city limits where bow hunting will be permitted, trapping is probably where the majority of the population control will come from.

He said it looks like the city is on the hook for the processing costs for the deer carcasses and FWP recommends testing them for chronic wasting disease.

At last week’s meeting Hemmer said there’s never been a case of CWD in humans, but they like to be cautious.

After Kaercher provided details on the plan, Hill County commissioners Diane McLean and Jake Strissel said they didn’t see any issues with the plan and decided to put the matter on next week’s business meeting agenda so Commissioner Mark Peterson, who was out of the office during the meeting Monday, would have a chance to voice his opinion.

McLean said she hopes a plan of hunting and trapping will make the deer that don’t get caught or killed more wary around humans and maybe curb some of their destructive effects.

She suggested the city get in touch with the Hill County Sheriff’s Office and keep them in the loop and Kaercher said they intend to, given the sheriff’s office also has jurisdiction within the city.

Kaercher said the plan, if implemented wouldn’t really change much for the sheriff’s office as it already has the authority to dispatch dangerous animals when needed, but it would still be good to keep them informed and ask for their support.

As for the plan itself, he said it will need to be submitted to Fish, Wildlife and Parks by July 5 if they want to get approval in October so they can implement it this year, so the city will likely need to hold a special meeting to get the draft approved in time for the July deadline.

He said he would keep the county in the loop as the plan solidifies.

Kaercher said because he wants to get the plan implemented this year and the deadline is coming up soon, some elements will probably not be in the plan until next year.

In particular, he said they were hoping to include the city-county planning area in the plan, but that probably won’t be something they can put in the plan this year for logistical reasons and will need to be put in next year’s plan.