The City of Rye Deer Management Committee met on Thursday evening, November 13, 2026, and it appears the group will advance its recommendations to the Rye City Council as early as January. The group has done exhaustive work laying the foundation for its recommendations, including a forest ecology study by Dr. Danielle Begley-Miller, PhD, CSE. of Forest Management Solutions, LLC that shows Rye has an overabundance of deer and the overabundance is having wide-ranging negative effects.
A draft ten year plan has been circulating among the committee and was discussed among members Thursday evening and contains four main elements:
- Scientific Monitoring. Monitor both the deer herd and the understory of the forest.
- Protected Tree Planting. Jumpstart the forest recovery by planting tree saplings with tree guards (so that they are safe from deer browsing)
- Increasing Fence Height Two+ Feet. Relax the fencing rules to allow fencing up to 8 – 10 feet. Deer can easily jump over fencing less than 8 feet. The City of Rye currently restricts fencing to a maximum height of 6 feet.
- Reducing the Deer Herd. Apply for a Deer Damage Permit (DDP) from the NY Department of Environmental Conservation to allow for carefully controlled population reduction.
“We’re going to use every tool that’s available to us in order to try and right size the herd to get it back to where it needs to be for for us to establish natural regeneration of the forest, which is a bellwether for the rest of the ecology, and to protect the residents’ property,” said Deer Management Committee Chair Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Beyond the forest ecology study and the drone deer population survey both performed specifically for the City of Rye. Fitzpatrick reminded everyone of the scientific expertise brought into the committee from the very beginning, invoking the names of Bernd Blossey, professor, natural resources and the environment at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and evolutionary ecologist and professor Dr. Susan Kalisz.
“Bernd Blossey and Dr. Susan Kalisz are pretty much like the ‘Babe Ruth’ and the ‘Lou Gehrig’ of ecology and deer management,” said Fitzpatrick.
Based on scheduling, the group will refine its current draft in December before being expected to present its recommendations to the Rye City Council in January.
Watch the proposal discussion:
Has the Deer Management Committee considered sterilization?