City To Send Out Plane To Look For Deer On Staten Island
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- With Staten Island deer sightings on the rise, officials plan to start keeping track of animals from the sky.
The Staten Island Advance reported Monday that the city aims to count and track deer with an infrared camera, mounted on a small plane. The effort is to start this winter.
The plane will reach altitudes of 1,000 feet and fly at night, when the difference in temperature between warm-blooded animals and the land around them is the highest, the newspaper reported.
City Parks Department spokeswoman Tara Kiernan said the move is a first step toward developing a plan to manage the island's deer population.
Deer have long been seen on the island's more rural west and south shores. Now, deer sightings are increasing on the northern shore.
The city Sanitation Department said 34 large, dead deer were removed from Staten Island roads from Jan. 1 to early October, compared with 44 in all of last year.
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