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AllOTSEGO.com, OTSEGO COUNTY’S DAILY NEWSPAPER/ONLINE
Oneonta, N.Y., Thursday, December 8, 2022
COMPLIMENTARY
What To Do About the Deer: An Ongoing Rural Debate By TED MEBUST
ONEONTA
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Photo by Caitlin Breier
Driving in a Winter Wonderland COOPERSTOWN—Snowy white vistas replace autumn’s palette of red, yellow and orange as the seasons change, as evidenced by these snow-dusted trees on County Highway 33.
Garden Club a Force of Nature By DAN SULLIVAN
RICHFIELD SPRINGS
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any communities across New York State have garden clubs. The thought of them might conjure an image of some local “dames de certain age” tending selected areas, resplendent in gloves and sun hats, for several weeks during the late spring and summer, doing their part to beautify their town. They then recede into the backINSIDE ► Twas the night before christmas, insights into the poem, page A2
ground until next year. That vision bears little resemblance to reality for the Garden Club of Richfield Springs. The GCRS is a 12-month operation with 18 full-time members and several “auxiliary” (read: male) members that meet and work throughout the calendar year. Any given month will have the club meeting several times, both as a full club and in one or more of its 10 standing commit Continued on page 7
River Journalist Honored with Topps Allen & Ginter Card By TED MEBUST
► back to masking, and not only TAIPEI, Taiwan for COVID, page A4 ► despite the men’s national soccer team loss, they have a bright future, page A4 ► letters to the editor: transfer station rebuttal; the slippery slope of surveillance cameras, page A4 ► superstar bradley weldon, on her accomplishments, page A6 Follow Breaking News On
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he City of Oneonta’s Quality of Life and Infrastructure Committee recently heard findings from a commissioned report on the various impacts of increasing deer populations in the area. Carried out over two months, the Deer Management Task Force report named overabundance, Lyme disease and an increasing number of deer-related accidents as driving forces behind their investigation. “Our goal is not to eliminate deer. It’s to reduce the population to a sustainable level and mitigate the problems surrounding the issue right now,” explained Betsy Holland, an Oneonta resident who led the special task force and presented at the meeting on Monday, November 28. Overpopulation, Holland stressed, has wide-ranging impacts on our ecosystem, endangering the health of both deer and humans in Otsego County. Consulting with Donna Vogler, a professor of biology at SUNY Oneonta, the task force detailed how vegetation on forest floors is decimated and biodiversity decreases when deer populations are too dense, allowing invasive species to flourish. With this comes increased competition for food and transmission of diseases and parasites amongst deer populations. Recorded Lyme disease cases in Oneonta alone have jumped from eight in 2020 to 114 in 2022, according to Bassett Healthcare practitioner Diane Georgeson, MD. Additionally a survey linked to the report found 75 percent of
Oneontan respondents rated the negative impacts of deer on people as very important and 88 percent described having been affected by a deer-related accident. Considering the absence of any natural predators for big game, such as wolves and mountain lions, the main control for deer populations today is hunting. Though not its sole recommendation, the task force encouraged antlerless deer hunting on the city’s outskirts and proposed that city officials apply for a nuisance license from New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation to allow hunting deer outside of season. “Regulated hunting remains the most efficient means to manage deer. Adequate harvests of antlerless deer are essential to successful efforts,” cited the task force from a DEC deer management report. Their recommendation comes at a time when the benefits of late-season hunting in rural communities have come into question. Following the introduction of a Holiday Deer Hunt by the NewYork State Department of Environmental Conservation last year, extended bow and muzzleloader seasons have stretched deer and bear hunting into January. While regular firearm season runs from November 19 to December 11, the Holiday Deer Hunt allows bow and muzzleloader hunting from December 12-20 and December 26 to January 1 in the Southern Zone, within which Otsego County is located. A State Senator Joe Mannion-sponsored bill, S6510/A07785—which has passed Continued on page 6
S
tanding next to his uncle amongst the roaring Jack Murphy Stadium crowd, a young Neal Moore watched the Cincinnati Reds’ Johnny Bench step into the batter’s box for one of his final career at-bats. Pausing to capture the moment, he felt forceful echoes of “We want Johnny! We Want Johnny!” rumble throughout the grounds. It was a moment, he said, that made him understand the significance of baseball. “There were three pitches and there were three strikes. And it didn’t matter. In the nosebleeds [seats] with my uncle, I thought to myself, this isn’t about the
Padres, and it’s not about the Reds. This is about baseball, America’s pastime. Right here and right now is something beautiful. There are moments that are magic,” he explained. The man who traversed America along 22 of its connecting rivers from February 2020 to December 2021 told this story while reflecting on his journey. Surviving obstacles of all sizes, from flat tire portages with his canoe to curious bull sharks in the Mississippi, he had hoped to intimately understand how America and its people are connected. Though baseball only represented part of Moore’s passage, having casually hiked to Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Continued on page 10
Photo provided
Neal Moore, pictured with his signed Allen & Ginter baseball card from this year’s collection, at the Topps offices in New York City.
THE FREEMAN’S JOURNAL & HOMETOWN ONEONTA, OTSEGO COUNTY’S LARGEST PRINT CIRCULATION 2010 WINNERS OF The Otsego County Chamber/KEY BANK SMALL BUSINESS AWARD