By RICK NEBEL
Los Alamos
This is in response to the county’s recent wildlife article.
I’m not a wildlife expert, but for the past 50 years my brother and I have managed one of our farms for the wildlife (primarily whitetail deer). Early on in our stewardship, I contacted the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (game and fish) to have them do a wildlife assessment of our farm and make suggestions as to how we could improve our wildlife management. When we got the report back from them, they had several suggestions for habitat improvement which we implemented. I was expecting that they would have recommendations for some food plots for the deer. What they told me was that our 140 Acres was surrounded by a sea of corn and soybeans, and the deer didn’t have any problem finding something to eat.
It seems to me that our deer situation in Los Alamos is very analogous to this. There is an abundance of food for the deer (lawns, shrubs, fruit trees, fruit, parks, the golf course, etc.) such that finding something to eat is not a major issue for the deer in Los Alamos. I don’t think that passing the wildlife antifeeding ordinance is going to reduce the number of deer in Los Alamos. In fact, the New Mexico Game and Fish Department has been trying to enforce this non-existent ordinance for the past 8 months, and I certainly haven’t seen any reduction in the number of deer in Los Alamos.
I have two very simple questions for the County Councilors that I would like to have them respond to In public:
- Why do you believe that this ordinance will have a significant impact on the number of deer in Los Alamos?
- If you don’t think it will have an impact, then why are you supporting it?