Another country of the world is awakening to the untapped resource of a wild deer poulation, and harvesting them as a food resource, at the same time as solving the problems they create. The Town of Amherst is looking at a new way to control its persistent deer problem "” by turning them into a cash crop. On Monday The Buffalo News reports, the board agreed to have its town departments work with the town and state to evaluate the possibility of having deer penned in on large agricultural properties in Amherst and grown for food. "It's treating them like cattle," said Council Member Barry Weinstein, who sponsored the deer farming resolution. "As a physician, I'm not concerned about deer, but deer-vehicle accidents," Weinstein said. "The deer are a real menace to driving in Amherst. I mean, they're cuter than mosquitoes, but just as dangerous." Weinstein said he came across the idea because, as a member of the Upstate Mandate Relief Commission, he was sent an article on the success of deer farming in New Zealand as an example of how governments can develop creative solutions for difficult problems. The brief article stated that deer had been pests in NZ for 120 years, after they were imported by the English for hunting and subsequently escaped into the wild. Allowing farming communities to catch and raise the deer solved the country's deer problem at no cost to the government. NZ now supplies 40 % of the world market's venison, the article stated.
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