SUNY Oneonta Closes Recreational Areas Due to Safety Concerns Over City’s Deer Management Hunting

By FLORECITA SILVERIO
SUNY Institute for Local News
ONEONTA

All trails at SUNY Oneonta’s College Camp as well as the university’s upper intramural field will remain closed through Sunday, December 7 while deer hunting continues on city-owned land along East Street in the area. The College Camp lodge remains open for reservations and events.

Hunting will not take place on the College Camp property. However, since its trails are near city-owned land where hunters could be active, the university closed the trails as a “necessary precaution,” Director of Community Affairs and Government Relations Caroline Williams said in a written statement.

The closures come as Oneonta continues its multi-phase deer management plan, which was developed in response to concerns about damage to forests and parks from deer overbrowsing, deer-related car accidents, tick-borne illnesses that can be spread by deer, and other issues.

“It’s not just about deer eating people’s flowers in their front yard,” Oneonta Deer Management Coordinator Susan Lettis said.

This fall, the city issued all 80 of its deer management plan tags, or hunting permits. All hunting under the deer management plan takes place on property owned by the city in the Town of Oneonta, outside of the city’s limits, Lettis said. She noted that some city-owned land available for hunting last year is now closed due to logging.

For this year’s hunting season, the city added more signs along the borders of the areas where hunting is taking place and updated the map given to hunters to show trails where people may be walking or biking, Lettis said.

In a November 13 campus news e-mail, SUNY Oneonta urged those taking part in outdoor recreation this fall and winter to follow best practices for safety during hunting season, including wearing brightly-colored clothing, not going off trail, making noise so hunters know people are in the area, and keeping pets leashed.

After the current hunting season is over, the city will report the results to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC will decide if the city can move to the next phase of its deer management plan, which is a culling program, Lettis said.

“If it’s okay with them, then we’ll have more planning to do,” she said.

This story was created by student reporters through the OnNY Community Media Service, a program of SUNY Oneonta and the SUNY Institute for Local News.