Money For Hunting, And The Tricks For Free

Seen in every neighborhood where hunting is allowed.

False data continues to proliferate mainstream and social media, overwhelm online comments, and spill from local officials and residents’ lips about the recently-passed bow bow-hunting advisory election. Although Cuyahoga County Board of Elections official/final results for all six communities show about 2 to 1 in favor of bow hunting, the majority of registered voters in all six communities did not vote.

That’s how voting works, right? Actually, no, this is weird. Just over 19,000 Parma residents voted out of 85,000, less than 18%. Most suspect is Broadview Heights, whose majority resoundingly voted no to bow hunting in 2010, but now, 63% voted for and 37% voted against bow hunting March 15.

Could opinions have changed about deer, especially since their mass slaughter in West Creek Reservation by Cleveland Metroparks officials begun three years ago forced more deer into our yards?

Maybe it’s because the true majority of registered voters and residents still don’t know Cuyahoga County Mayors and City Managers Association – a taxpayer funded lobbyist group that earned $170,000 in 2014 and held closed-door meetings with the Ohio Division of Wildlife for over a year -- came up with a plan that would “get ‘er done.”

Am I alleging voter fraud? Am I alleging voter suppression?

Is it possible our taxpayer-funded lobbyist Mayors Assn. -- legally represented by attorney Cosgrove of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey whose firm formed a political action committee that directly donated to these mayoral campaigns last fall – somehow made sure hunting would pass?

Do these pro bow hunting voters at least care about their money, that attorney Cosgrove lobbies for our Mayors Assn. at legislative and executive levels with the State of Ohio -- same gov’t whose Dept. Natural Resources arm, Ohio Division of Wildlife -- profits by tens of millions annually from Ohio hunters who literally keep it in business? In Seven Hills, where all the fighting is about our dire lack of money, I’d think voters would really want to know this fact.

At least one of these mayors is asking for a raise from residents this fall.

Rabid gardeners who HATE deer -- like one Parma City school board official who loudly behaved rudely towards me outside the polling location March 15 and who has the ear of her spouse on Seven Hills council – don’t realize “limited” hunting will not reduce landscape damage one bit because ODOW uses ICC (Inflection Carrying Capacity) to keep deer populations robustly rebounding. ICC means ODOW maintains populations between 50 and 75% to guarantee a high number of live targets for the six percent who hunt, many of whom don’t live in these communities. Independence bow hunters are 60% nonresidents and, of them, 85% of their applications were turned away because they had no permits or licenses.

Independence’s bow hunting program – touted as a paragon of population control – has completely failed. A recent mainstream article claims huge reductions in deer-vehicle collisions in Indy since 2001 because of bow hunting. But hunting didn’t start in there until 2007, when I-77 sound barriers were installed, after which accidents dropped precipitously. Sickeningly, Indy boasts a 66% percent NON-resident hunting permit status and many, MANY hunting violations.

Deer-vehicle crash records for all six communities significantly declined after spiking in 2009, the year Indy police chief slyly claims as a baseline, further skewing data.

Our Mayors Assn. ensured six communities will collectively garner at least $300,000 (grossly underestimated) in special fees for a permit to hunt, separate from state licensing fees. The state will make about $150,000. But maybe not, if city officials make legislation tough enough, which begs the question, how will that reduce populations?

Look no further for proof that all levels of government have taken deer, supposedly held in Public Trust for all to enjoy, and turned them and our neighborhoods into giant, outdoor slaughterhouses for profit than the fact that an extremely informed and knowledgeable activist like me who screams the truth about bow hunting will not be asked to serve as liaison between Seven Hills and the ODOW. Just. You. Watch.

That task is better left to someone better at negotiating with terrorists. ODOW and city officials and you who voted “yes” to hunting: you have proven Stanley Milgram -- the famous experimenter who proved the masses will blindly obey whatever authority tells them to do -- to be correct. Along with mainstream media, whose slanted, echo-chamber “reporting” ensures propaganda finds its “sheeple.”

If you’re ready to help me to go after the state for mismanaging deer in urban areas (what the Mayors Assn. pretended to do while it conspired for profit behind closed doors since Sept. 2014) by forcing a ballot initiative for ODOW reform based on broad-based rather than hunter funding, replacing its board of directors who are all hunters with unbiased authority, and requiring representatives and biologists to use ONLY “best practices” non-lethal management models for urban deer management, email me at 7hillsdeer@gmail.com.