DOES ANYONE OVERSEE OR REGULATE THE DEPARTMENTS WITHIN THE NYS DEC? IT WOULD APPEAR NO ONE DOES BASED ON SOME OF THEIR MOST RECENT ACTIONS.  

1. First they decide to KILL ALL MUTE SWANS in our state, for scientifically contested reasons.

2.Then they increase THE HUNTING SEASON for deer and Bear from October through January while REDUCING THE HUNTING SET-BACK from 500' to 150'.

3. They want to ADD BIG BORE RIFLES to the lethal arsenal of trophy hunters which can only be considered a flagrant, gratuitous nod toward hunters.

NOW A SMALL GROUP of ill-informed DEC insiders, sitting around a table one day in the Special Licenses office in Albany, have summarily and without official reveiw written new license conditions that are  criminally negligent on several levels.

4. They have now PROHIBITED their own licenced wildlife rehabbers from being able to ASSIST POLICE AND CITIZENS by helping injured deer or swans.

5. They have also written new conditions THAT PREVENT US FROM OVER-WINTERING ORPHANED FAWNS. Fawns must now be released with ear tags, at the beginning of the fall hunting season. This not only constitutes animal cruelty it is also illegal based on Ag. & Markets law #355 against animal abandonment. (Fawns do not survive the winter without their mothers and/or families.) Putting permanent identification tags on these hapless fawns creates serious liability issues for their rehabbers if they are involved in a traffic or other accident.

These non-scientific, ill-conceived changes will circumvent and effectively negate decades old DEC regulations and do not conform to any interpretation of the goals and ethics of wildlife conservation. In fact based on recent DEC official's comments THEIR MOTIVES ARE UNCLEAR AND UNSUBSTANTIATED.

Conceived behind closed doors with zero transparency or responsiveness to the majority of New York State's stakeholders including hundreds or dedicated rehabilitators, these new rules will directly result in the needless, horrific deaths of hundreds of adult and orphaned deer and AN INSTANT VACUUM OF EMERGENCY HELP THAT OUR POLICE AND RESIDENTS HAVE BECOME DEPENDENT UPON.

 WE URGENTLY PLEAD WITH OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS to protect the vital role we play every day when we answer a call for help from our local police or our fellow residents in emergency situations involving deer. WHO is going to respond now to the scene of deer/vehicle collisions, to restrain or remove a deer trapped under a vehicle? Or to prevent a deer from fleeing back into oncoming traffic? WHO is going to help a homeowner when a deer is tangled or impaled on a man-made fence, or trapped in a window well? Who will respond to a deer wandering the streets with an arrow jutting from his body. The emergency situations that occur that require our assistance are limitless. All over New York State, there are qualified, highly professional wildlife rehabbers who have voluteered their time and money for these vital roles for decades. Now this small group of agenda driven insiders expects us to break our oaths and "euthanize" deer after we have spent years learning how to effectively treat and release them back into the wild? Should we now just explain to the thousands of your constituents who call us for help that Gov. Cuomo's DEC has forbidden us to help deer and swans anymore?  

With the stroke of a pen, this small isolated group is wreaking havoc within the DEC without benefit of the democratic process or the oversight of responsible superiors. This is in direct opposition to the will of the CITIZENS OF NEW YORK STATE who will reject these arbitarily imposed, unjustified limitations to our licences that amount to animal cruelty and will create many more very dangerous problems then they will solve.

The DEC desperately needs to be reined in, monitored and their policy maker's qualifications reviewed! THE DEC's GOAL SHOULD BE ANIMAL CONSERVATION - NOT EXTERMINATION!