Featured Letter: Cull will be deemed a failure

To the editor:

Local business owners should have thought about the impact this deer cull would have when they decided to allow out-of-town sharpshooters on their land for this so-called deer management program. For a town that increasingly relies on tourism, our local politicians have been negligent when it comes to protecting the image of Southold and how out-of-town visitors would look upon what’s happening. 

And while I have no idea who is behind the boycott, I can only imagine that, in a standoff as emotionally charged as this one, taking on groups who are as heavily armed as the USDA sharpshooters and as angry as the local hunters would have to be awfully intimidating.

No one is denying there’s a problem; we’re just asking for a more humane solution.

As for calling the development of the cull “an example of democracy at work,” as your editorial did last week, I attended one of those county hearings and left with the distinct impression that no one wanted to hear from anyone who was against the cull. It was basically a showdown between the Long Island Farm Bureau and the local hunters, and mine and other voices from many local residents dead-set against this cull were not and will not be heard.

And if Supervisor Scott Russell really believes that the overpopulation of deer on the North Fork is the largest crisis Southold faces, then it’s no wonder little is being done about the degradation of our aquifers and local waters. Meanwhile, the use of toxic pesticides as well as fertilizers and other causes to this true and actual crisis continue. But my hunch is that Russell knows this; he’s just continuing to try to justify what he knows is going to be an overpriced failure to the deer situation and the fury it’s continuing to kick up among his constituents, who will ultimately hold him responsible for this brutal failure that is now also threatening the local businesses he’s supposed to be looking out for.

Candice Vadala, Mattituck