Articles and Media Coverage From Animal Defenders of Westchester (ADOW)

Animal Defenders of Westchester takes aim at NYSDEC

From Kiley Blackman, lohud, Special to the USA TODAY Network
Updated October 21, 2026

For more than two decades, lohud and other periodicals have reported on our efforts to curtail hunting and culling in Westchester, using education and sometimes ingenious methods, like working with legislators to outlaw carrying unsheathed bows in city limits, and by publishing our letters:

We have visited Mamaroneck, Rye, Hastings and other venues, providing information and alternatives; we've worked with officials and residents all over Westchester, advocating for wildlife — while hunting employee enthusiasts from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, and other state-supported agencies advocate for slaughter.

Although the DEC has done a good job instructing the public on how to coexist peacefully with wildlife, they and their ancillary Bureau of Wildlife, or BOW, overwhelmingly remain a pro-hunting agency — run by an discriminatory advisory board composed of hunters only, which guarantees a lethal outcome for animals. We are petitioning Governor Hochul to allow non-hunters on this biased, discriminatory board: The current governance structure of the NYSDEC denies the basic principles of representative and accountable government.

These same pro-hunting state agencies are being challenged across the country, as non-hunters demand a 'seat at the table' for decision-making about our wildlife.

This staunch pro-hunting position includes a disgraceful pheasant-killling hunt, in which the DEC brings in non-native day-old chicks specifically for eventual target practice.

Each year thousands of baby birds spend their formative months in confinement, dependent on humans for food, water and shelter. They are then transported and released into unfamiliar environments where they lack the skills necessary to find food, evade predators, avoid roadways and survive New York winters. They are then released to be shot by hunters as a bizarre, cruel "training tool" in an unfamiliar environment.  Many of those not slaughtered die of starvation or are struck by cars.

They justify this pitiful slaughter as "offering a highly accessible gateway to the outdoors and an ideal introduction for hunters from non-traditional pathways." In meetings with DEC officials. we have pointed out that an activity like skeet shooting would do the same, except no animals have to die; this suggestion was ignored. The interest in this shameful, abhorrent practice, as with most hunting, is declining; in response the DEC is actually expanding Pheasant killing locales, in hopes that increased accessibility will produce more people willing to join in; but this is not sport nor conservation.  As one hunter said, "Shooting stocked pheasants isn't hunting — it's killing."

The DEC also encourages and provides training for youth hunts and trapping: The brutality of trapping in particular, which allows animals to suffer for 24 hours between checks, causing some to chew off their own legs to escape, has caused it to be banned in several states. And there are better things to teach children instead of killing animals for fun; in fact teaching Humane Education, which is mandated by law in NYS for grades 1-6, is ignored in the school system.

All of these issues insult and obliterate the good community relations the DEC has fostered.

As hunting falls out of favor in New York, frenzied efforts by pro-hunting/culling advocates have intensified, with one amazingly announcing deer will eventually cause the end of civilization.

We cannot allow the expansion of hunting in Westchester

Citing the fact that hunting is on the decline, another hunting advocate proposes enlisting children to kill deer here. Their sites are set again on Westchester; so we'd like to provide some facts to counter a variety of DEC/hunter falsehoods:

A large measure of DEC/BOW primary income is through the sale of hunting licenses and taxes, plus related equipment and ancillary hunting expenditures. Hunting and trapping provide considerable funds for these agencies, along with the billion-dollar general fund and grants.

Deer populations are manipulated. Deer management agencies create hunting opportunities establishing zones, hunting seasons, license fees and related taxes, and bag limits to maximize birth rates which ultimately raise deer numbers in the whole state. Many game agencies acknowledge hunting maximizes fawn production, called twinning, multiple births and the rebound effect.

DEC/BOW builds wildlife populations specifically for hunting. The excise taxes on firearms, bows and arrows are insufficient to pay for their sport of killing animals. New York state is required to match 25% of the federal excise tax that is contributed to the state. The Bureau of Wildlife’s overhead costs are paid out of the DEC's general fund.

Deer culls are in fact quite costly to taxpayers. White Buffalo, Inc. was contracted to kill 200 deer in Greenwich; but only 80 were killed on three town-owned properties in March 2005, at the cost of over $74,000 to taxpayers, based on inflated deer numbers. As a result of the highly criticized Teatown deer slaughter, taxpayers were charged approximately $50,000 for a proposed killing of more than 70 deer; instead, 11 were killed — while leaving local residents haunted by shots in the night. Solon, Ohio conducted annual deer slaughters over a period of four years, at a cost of almost $1 million — and was deemed a failure.

Deer killing merely provides the DEC with funding, and residents with a feeling that something is being done about deer numbers — while in fact ensuring that those numbers will replenish by the next hunting season.

We must protect Westchester's deer

Westchester has been served with a Notice of Dangerous Condition concerning possible dangers of these culls, such as non-target animals and people being injured or killed as a result or even being traumatized by seeing this carnage; lawsuits arising from such incidents could negatively affect property taxes.

The CDC has proven that mice are the primary carriers of the misnamed deer ticks — not deer.

The DEC tried to sell a deer-killing plan to Yonkers using the same deer-are -destroying-trees argument, until we pointed out that Yonkers had just destroyed almost ninety acres of trees to build yet another mall, after tearing down 100 acres of trees for an additional Yonkers mall one mile away. In fact, Westchester was once — along with all of New York — all trees. If you want to find out why they disappeared, look in the mirror.

Deer are beautiful, gentle animals. After a cull, the 50% of fawns still nursing will be waiting for their slain mothers to stand up — if the fawns aren't killed, too. This is the reality of the deer killings hunters are pushing for. We bulldoze and build in their habitats, then fret when they walk into our yards. The human population is burgeoning with 8 billion people, plus adding more than 80 million people each year. This means more demands on housing, employment, water supplies and the environment. We will have to decide how to address this situation; but the very last thing we should be doing is scapegoating and killing wildlife as a result of our own culpability.

Times are changing and the DEC knows it: The fact is less people are interested in killing animals for fun. We are working with the DEC with the goal of this state agency representing not just hunters but all New Yorkers, as it should.

Kiley Blackman is the founder of Animal Defenders of Westchester.

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