It only makes sense:
As the Tribune-Review reports it, Pittsburgh City Council has approved spending up to $99,000 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help oversee a much needed deer-culling program – “nearly 10 times what the city spent last year on a pilot program.”
That pilot program saw 108 deer taken by 30 archers in Frick and Riverview parks. The expanded program will incorporate Schenley, Emerald View and Highland parks.
While one of the primary stated reasons for the cull is to reduce vehicle collisions with such fauna, reducing damage to the flora also is critical.
Simply put, too many deer lead to too many vehicular accidents and too much damage to the parks’ ecosystems. Additionally, too many deer concentrated in these park areas can spread diseases among those herds.
It must be stressed that such programs in no way are designed to totally eradicate deer. A fool’s errand on its face, that would lead to a similar ecosystem imbalance the other way.
Again, from the Trib:
“City officials said this year’s program might include professional U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters who could help further reduce the city’s deer population in Frick and Riverview parks if the volunteer archers don’t kill as many deer as the city wants.
“Officials have not yet specified the desired number of deer to be culled.”
Indeed, that’s a moving and growing target, given how deer procreate. But, make no mistake, half-measures will only make any deer-culling program a waste of money.
Allegheny County Council likely has saved itself from wiping egg off its collective face down the road.
The council rejected a resolution, 8-6, that would have opposed the sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel.
U.S. government approval has been stalled by more political machinations than any practical reasons.
In fact, it has become quite clear that if this merger is scuttled by the government, U.S. Steel would be at serious risk of either going out of business or bought by another steel concern that would have little to no affinity for the U.S. Steel’s remaining Pittsburgh-area operations.
Nippon has promised to move its U.S. headquarters to Pittsburgh and keep U.S. Steel as an operating entity while investing hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize local facilities.
Any County Council resolution would have had no legal authority to stop the merger. But had the council adopted it — and the company- and jobs-killing rejection played out — its members never could have lived down (and neither should they have been allowed to live down) such an utterly ignorant and uninformed resolution.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
