From Animal Defenders of Westchester (ADOW)

We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.

Animal Defenders Founder Responds to Judge’s Deer Hunting Column

Letter as published on MyRye.com
October 30, 2025

https://myrye.com/2025/10/kiley-blackman-deer-management/

Kiley Blackman of Greenburgh, the founder of Animal Defenders of Westchester, writes in response to a recent column on deer hunting law by Judge Latwin. Blackman was active on the deer issue in Rye during Mayor Joe Sack’s tenure and reports she was recently contacted by concerned Rye residents on the current (and new) deer management work being undertaken.

Letter:

Letters to the Editor: re: Holding Court: On the Hunt with Judge Latwin

Judge Latwin gushes about various NYS opportunities to kill wildlife, providing extensive, detailed information on how this can be done (tho he himself only ‘hunts’ in the frozen food section). He uses the usual hunter-euphemisms of ‘bagging,’ ‘taking’ and ‘harvesting’ animals – judge, call what hunters do by the correct name – it’s killing ducks (sounds kinda cruel when you tell the truth about it, doesn’t it). He then enumerates the tricks of the trade – luring animals to their doom using box calls, slate calls; how about hunting without trickery and deceit?

The DEC ‘allows’ bear, deer etc. to be killed based on laws enacted almost 100 years ago, written for hunters by hunters; is this fair? The DEC promotes hunting, constantly lowering the hunting age etc because it profits by the sale of licenses and related equipment, so our wildlife becomes nothing more than profitable targets; but the fact is hunting is on the decline and NYS parks are used overwhelmingly for non-consumptive activities like hiking and photography. Hunting ultimately manipulates deer numbers to hunter’s advantage, in fact actually increasing the number of deer.

If Rye insists on a need for ‘management’ I congratulate the residents who’ve pushed for sensible changes to the city codes to allow ‘higher fencing’ etc. In 2025 we realize that animals are sentient, intelligent and love their babies just as we love ours. As Westchester stridently continues to bulldoze habitats to make our homes, we leave wildlife with nowhere to go. But we are intelligent people: We don’t kill our way out of supposed problems; we understand that our resident wildlife have a right to co-exist in peace.

Kiley Blackman
Founder
Animal Defenders of Westchester

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