Ogden Dunes suspends plans for deer cull

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Updated: February 25, 2012 8:18AM

The Ogden Dunes Town Council decided to suspend the town’s deer cull through Feb. 15 — when the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ special-use deer control permit expires.

The vote was unanimous at the council’s emergency meeting on Monday. As a result, the DNR hearing scheduled for Tuesday before an administrative law judge is cancelled.

Town Council President Bill Gregory said the changing makeup of the council — four of the five members are new — and public debate influenced the decision.

“There’s a desire on the part of those four (new) members as well as the rest of us to re-establish some harmony in town,” Gregory said. “There was a lot of angst and the public was unhappy.”

Councilman Charlie Costanza said he was surprised because most council members were in favor of the cull until he raised several reasons that the town may lose the permit at the hearing.

“They requested the permit based on erroneous information,” Costanza said. “Davis Aviation will fly over the town to have an infrared deer count. We didn’t even have that before; they just guessed on the amount of deer in the town. You need to have a basis for what you’re going to do.”

The town had police officers serve as shooters from stands in Suerenity Park for a few days, and 17 deer were killed.

Gregory said the council is creating a seven-member Deer Management Lyme Disease Prevention Task Force that will examine the various deer control options, such as another cull, contraception, and trapping and removal.

“We still have the issue of Lyme disease, and we want to make sure it doesn’t grow,” Gregory said.

According to the Porter County Health Department, the town had two suspected, four probable and four confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2011 — which represented half of all cases in the county and the highest incidence in the state.

Costanza said any resident interested in serving on the task force should contact his Town Council representative. Gregory said the council hopes to have nominees in place by its Feb. 6 meeting.