Nov 25, 2015 By Harry Funk 3 min read

Mt. Lebanon could learn early next year about the details of a process to receive a permit for a deer sterilization program.

Commissioner Kelly Fraasch was among those from the municipality who met with Pennsylvania Game Commission representatives to discuss how to secure such permission, which would be a first in the state.

The Game Commission would have basically a template, like they’d give us for any other means of deer management, a draft of it, by the second week of January,” Fraasch said during the Mt. Lebanon Commission’s Nov. 23 discussion session.

She provided information about a Nov. 10 meeting hosted in Harrisburg by state Rep. Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon, with Commissioner Dave Brumfield and municipal solicitor Philip Weis participating by telephone.

Also attending were Anthony DeNicola of White Buffalo Inc., an organization specializing in deer management, which is in the process of conducting an organized archery hunt in Mt. Lebanon. DeNicola has conducted sterilization programs in other states in conjunction with the Humane Society of the United States, which also had representatives at the Nov. 10 meeting.

Along with game commission officials, other participants were from the Delaware County-based Dietrich W. Botsiber Foundation, which has proposed funding a sterilization project in Mt. Lebanon.

“What the Game Commission said they would do was prepare the framework they would require of a study to approve it for use in Pennsylvania, and a study could be narrower and smaller scale than the types of things we’ve discussed in the past,” Brumfield said.

In 2014, the municipality applied to the state agency for a permit to use sterilization as a means of deer management. The application was returned, though, with a request for further information.

This year, Mt. Lebanon started investigation the possibility of being the site for what would be a research study, with some amount of the expenses paid by Botsiber. Questions, though, have arisen regarding how much the foundation would pay and what requirements it might attempt to impose.

Commissioner Coleen Vuono continued to express skepticism during the discussion session.

“The foundation would expect, once the program is agreed upon, that we halt any lethal programs in public lands,” she said.

John Bendel, commission president, agreed that such a stipulation would be “incompatible with what the majority of the commission said,” referring to himself, Vuono and Steve Silverman.

Brumfield, in turn, questioned why the municipality should reject pursuing money from Botsiber.

“For the life of me, there is no benefit to this community to turn down the possibility of a fully-funded program because it might not work out,” he said.

During the regular meeting following the discussion session, several Mt. Lebanon residents spoke in favor of pursuing sterilization, including Barbara Alsko of Florida Avenue.

“I support this project because I think the solution, if we use sterilization, would have the greatest impact on the actual reduction of deer-vehicle collisions, which this all is supposed to be all about,” Alsko said.

Reducing the number of fertile females, she contended, would help mitigate aggressive behavior by bucks during rutting season, while sterile females tend not to eat as much, which in turn could benefit local gardeners.