July 24, 2017 – West Bend, WI – The West Bend Common Council voted to table discussion on the Deer Management Program.
During its Monday night meeting the Park & Recreation Commission offered two recommendations on how to deal with what some consider a growing population of deer in the community.
Primary recommendation was to take no action at this time, for the following reasons: Public Safety, costs to the City of West Bend, DNR has stated this is not a big problem overall and recent hunts in similar communities have had limited success and effectiveness.
Secondary recommendation, if the Common Council feels there is a deer problem in West Bend that needs to be addressed, it is strongly recommended to start with a test pilot program at Lac Lawrann Conservancy only. The test would be done in the winter, during weekdays and under controlled circumstances.
After some discussion Mayor Kraig Sadownikow suggested a committee come back with a plan on how to best use Lac Lawrann as a test. He indicated it would be best to start small, on sort of a test run.
“If we’re Ford we don’t go and make 100,000 cars, we make 10 and test them out,” he said.
The council tabled the decision to give the Parks Committee and alderman John Butschlick, Steve Hutchins and Adam Williquette time to figure out a program to carry out an initial trial on deer management at Lac Lawrann.
Nobody from the public asked to speak during the meeting.