WHITEHALL, Ohio ( WCMH ) – When a Whitehall resident had a deer get stuck in the fence separating their property from City Councilmember Lori Elmore’s, they asked the legislator to step in.
Elmore said she had to call the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and that the fence eventually had to be destroyed to free the animal. The incident, paired with numerous complaints from residents about an overpopulation of white-tailed deer, sparked Elmore to introduce a nuisance deer management ordinance, which would allow residents to apply for licenses and hunt white-tailed deer with various archery weapons.
Deer are native to Ohio and can be found in all 88 counties. According to the state DNR, white-tailed deer provided food for generations of Indigenous Americans but faced unregulated hunting and habitat destruction when the state was colonized. From 1904 into the 1920s, deer were practically nonexistent in Ohio but have since returned and become a wildlife staple.
Restaurants open Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in central Ohio