Will County Deer Culling Paused for Now

Back in 2010, with neighboring Grundy County seeing deer dying from disease and what they saw as a deer overpopulation, Forest Preserve of Will County officials chose to cull the deer. The decision was met differently in towns across the county. Channahon and Minooka residents objected more to the process and the way they were choosing to cull deer than the decision to cull them.

Channahon-Minooka Patch reported on the culling concerns in 2010.

"Our concern continues to be the use of high-powered rifles and the type of high-powered rifles," Village President Joe Cook said at the Channahon Village Board meeting Nov. 1, 2010 "Our No. 1 concern is the safety of our residents."

By 2011, the district changed the size of the rounds. from a .223 caliber ammo. to a .308 caliber.

Now, the officials in the county are choosing to pause the culling until they can both test the deer for epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) and count the current population.

Don Gould, vice president of the Forest Preserve District of Will County board, said it is the nature of deer culling to have to reexamine the prevelance of disease and to look at the numbers to evaluate whether a continuation of culling is necessary.

Will County Forest Preserve board members decided to cull deer in 2010 in part to help restore the balance to the ecosystems and in part to cut down on auto versus deer collisions.

Will County Board President Cory Singer said in a story in the Herald News that so far the program has been successful because the number of deer/auto collisions are down.

“Our first priority is always people,” he said. “That’s a significant outcome and that’s all I care about. It was the right thing to do.”

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