Stray-bullet worries among fears over Eagle Creek Park deer hunt

Jennifer Jones is worried about the city's plans to allow hunters to use high-powered rifles to kill deer in Eagle Creek Park.

Her master bedroom overlooks Eagle Creek Reservoir, and she's concerned that a stray bullet could roar across the lake from the park to hit her, one of her family members or her pets.

So she was pleased Monday when a fellow park enthusiast filed a lawsuit seeking to block the city's plans to open the park to a series of deer hunts in the coming weeks.

Jones said she has been frustrated by what she says is a lack of transparency from city officials on when the hunts will occur and what safety measures will be used.

"The neighborhood, especially the people who live around the park like I do, have not been notified of what exactly is even going to happen over there," said Jones, a Marion County deputy prosecutor. "No one ever mentioned high-powered rifles. This is insane."

The lawsuit filed by Wayne Larry Peavler alleges the city's parks board overstepped its authority in allowing the hunts without proper notice and public comment and that it inappropriately circumvented the City-County Council. The suit also contends the city hasn't adequately proven the deer are so overpopulated that a hunt is needed.

Marc Lotter, spokesman for Mayor Greg Ballard, said the city has held informational meetings and solicited comment from the public to let neighbors know what was being proposed. He said the reason no dates or specific details have been announced is because permits and contracts need to be finalized.

"We're still several weeks if not a month out from when anything actually takes place," Lotter said. "As we get closer, I know they have a plan in place to be letting nearby residents and park users know about when that's going to take place."

In late September, the parks board begrudgingly approved a plan to kill deer in the city's largest park after hearing testimony from ecologists who said there are so many of the voracious herbivores in Eagle Creek that they're damaging its ecology by eating the park's native tree and plant seedlings down to perilously low levels. The only viable solution, the ecologists and natural resources officials said, is to kill off some of the deer.

Aside from being appalled at the thought of killing deer so tame they don't run when they're approached by park goers, Peavler and others are concerned about how the public-discussion process was handled.

"While members of the public had two minutes apiece, the folks who wanted to shoot the deer — I didn't add up the time — but they probably had over an hour between them, so that's been frustrating," said Peavler's attorney, Arend Abel.

Nonetheless, the parks board at its September meeting approved $61,000 in contracts with two groups to kill deer at the park.

The culls are to be broken into two phases. The first will be handled by the Wounded Warrior Outdoors program, which takes severely disabled combat veterans big-game hunting. Its website describes such hunts as "therapeutic outdoor adventures." The Department of Natural Resources on Monday approved a special permit for the hunters to use certain types of high-powered rifles, weapons that are otherwise illegal to shoot during the regular deer-hunting season. A bullet from such a rifle can potentially travel for miles if it doesn't hit a target.

The DNR's permit says any hunting at the park must be done from a parked vehicle or from an elevated stand. Scott Manning, spokesman for the city's Office of Sustainability, said the hunters will be positioned in such a way to ensure they're shooting into a backdrop that blocks a bullet's trajectory.

After that hunt occurs, a group of federal sharpshooters based at Purdue University will conduct a series of night-time culls using bait, silenced firearms and night-vision equipment.

The park will be closed during both phases. The meat is to be processed outside the park, where it will be taken home by hunters or donated to local food banks.

It remains illegal to hunt in city parks on any other days.

The permit allows for up to 350 deer to be killed at the park, but Manning said city officials do not expect that many deer would be killed. The permit would allow the culls to occur any time from Nov. 27 to Jan. 31. The permit can be renewed with DNR approval.

"The city wants to sort of sell this as a feel-good (program) to some extent for hunters," Abel said. "But I don't see how anybody feels good about sharpshooters setting out food at night and basically waiting for the deer to come along and kill as many as they can."

Some on the City-County Council aren't happy with the plan either. On Monday night, some councilors asked a committee to come up with regulations that would require any future hunts be approved by the whole council.

In September, five of the nine City-County Council's Parks and Recreation Committee members also sent a non-binding letter to the parks board urging it to spend more time exploring other, non-lethal options to deal with Eagle Creek's deer.

Jones, the Eagle Creek homeowner, said she believes the city broke the rules by passing the plan with only minimal input from concerned neighbors.

"If a deer hunt passed legally, I'll accept it," she said. "But the government must comply with its own law and they simply haven't here."

That will be up to a judge to decide. A hearing on Abel's request for an injunction hasn't been scheduled.

Call Star reporter Ryan Sabalow at (317) 444-6179. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanSabalow.