Stop killing our deer residents

I am 20 years of age and have lived in Bay Village all my life. I am extremely saddened to learn about culling being used as the means to decrease the population of deer. I do not agree with this.


Genesis chapters 1:26-29 tells us that God grants us dominion over all animals. When He created the animals, His intention was for us to never be alone. God gives us a choice between living with or harming His creations, but we are all held accountable in the end. We are to care for them, not treat them less than us, eat them or shoot them when they become too many. Pulling the trigger may not cause pain to you, but you are not the deer.

It is Christmas, and I wanted to ride my bike through the Metropark and feel much needed peace, but I could not because the police stopped me with flashing lights and sirens telling me I could not go home my normal way because hunters were present. The following day, I wanted to rake my back yard and enjoy the crisp air, but I could not because I heard 4 gunshots in the Metropark behind me. 

I should have NEVER heard that. I felt as if you had put a gun to my own head. I felt immense grief and pain with each shot. It felt horrific, and I am forever scarred from this. Bay Village is my hometown and you hunters are not welcome here.


I am not the only one who knows this is wrong. Cincinnati is one city that already has a deer sterilization project approved by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. We can do that here too. Deer feel pain. Deer have families and kids. The mother and father want to see their offspring succeed in life as we do our own.

Baby fawns need their mothers and stay by their side for the first 2 years of their life. They are traumatized by loss just like we are. They were made by God's hands as we were.

Please, from the bottom of my heart, stop this bloodbath. The abundance of trees and deer play a huge part of what makes Bay Village so special. We live with nature, and nature lives with us. The deer are beautiful animals. They are community and family.

The world is full of easy-way-outs. Killing will always be easier than finding a new home for our deer or sterilization. You may just be trying to reduce the numbers, but killing is still killing. You just sugarcoat it. Culling is killing, sounds the same and is the same.

The illusion and lie that issues will be solved with gun violence is what the world is now, and the Bay Village Police Department and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources set a perfect example of this. Deer are living, you and I are living – why do you see a target when I see a best friend?