Vote Against Deer

North Haven voters spoke last week, putting two women on the Village Board who are not opposed to hunting as a method of deer control. Nevertheless, exactly what the outcome will be of the village's most pressing issue remains to be seen.

Patricia Frankemoll‚, the only member of the North Haven Village Board who voted against authorizing a deer hunt last year, lost her seat, finishing third in a four-way race. Ms. Frankemoll‚ ran well behind the top two candidates.

Each of the front-runners, Katherine Miller and Laura Nolan, is a moderate, in favor of culling the herd - as was done last year over the vocal objections of what would now appear to have been a minority - but also willing to listen to arguments for the alternative, a temporary form of sterilization, as a possible future solution.

In carefully controlled hunts in 1996, some 250 deer out of an estimated 600 were killed. The outgoing board had given the animals that survived another year's grace, deciding last winter not to allow another hunt for at least two years. Is it possible that what is left of the herd will not cause enough damage in that time to warrant hunting so soon again?

Anything can happen in a year. Meanwhile, let's hope North Haven's new board, undistracted by activists or the media, can turn its attention to the village's other topic of hot debate: how much of the trail on the Stock Farm Preserve to open to the public. It's time that question was resolved.