After nixing castration, Iron Mountain to close deer pen. Can it save the herd?

Iron Mountain has for years kept a captive deer herd in its City Park
Faced with a large bill for implementing mandatory upgrades to the deer enclosure, the city council voted 5-2 to close the deer pen
Public pushback prompted the city to pause its plans to kill the herd and consider other options for the deer

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Iron Mountain wants to close a costly deer pen that has attracted visitors to its City Park since at least the 1940s, but officials just can’t figure out what to do with the sickly deer inside.

Officials scrapped initial plans to shoot the animals in the pen, which had sparked public revulsion. They also shelved a plan to castrate the bucks and let the herd die off naturally because the federal government would have required thousands of dollars in pen upgrades and a majority of the City Council members didn’t want to pay.

But officials say they can’t simply release the domesticated animals, which lack skills necessary to survive on their own.

So now, the city awaits word from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources about whether it can ship the deer out of town to another facility, a plan the DNR had previously nixed over fears of spreading disease such as tuberculosis.

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The type of license the city has for the animals doesn’t allow them to be moved, but the DNR is “open to granting an exception to state law and allowing reclassification, dependent upon disease test results,” Samantha Courtney, acting privately owned cervidae coordinator for the DNR Wildlife Division, said in an email to Bridge Michigan on Wednesday.

If the animals test negative for disease, the DNR could reclassify the city’s license, and the US Department of Agriculture could give the city a permit to move the animals to a new facility, Courtney said.

“Everything’s kind of on a standstill right now,” Mayor Dale Alessandrini said Wednesday.

At least one Detroit-area animal rehab facility — some 500 miles away from Iron Mountain — had expressed interest in taking on the herd, the mayor said.

The city has discussed closing the pen for at least a year, with many residents calling the animals’ living conditions inhumane. The small herd — 17 animals as of now — inbreeds inside the 6-acre enclosure, causing sickness in some of the creatures.

“It’s just too bad we were stifled by years of not paying attention to the breeding, and we should have,” Alessandrini told Bridge.

Last spring, the US Department of Agriculture ordered the city to make improvements to the pen, including better shelter and a drinking trough to replace the pond the city currently relies on to quench the animals’ thirst. The USDA also ordered the city to put the animals under the care of a veterinarian.

The price tag for all that came to $22,000 upfront, plus $16,000 a year for maintenance, feeding the animals and paying a vet, according to the Iron Mountain Daily News.

The city currently spends about $7,000 a year feeding the animals andhas a $9.4 million general fund budget.

Alessandrini said a park friends group and a local laborers union had promised to donate the money for the upfront costs, and the union had vowed to donate the labor for the work.

“We did have everything ready to go,” the mayor said.

Nonetheless, the City Council voted 5-2 on Feb. 2 to close the deer pen, according to minutes of the meeting, with some council members concerned the city would end up on the hook once donated funds run out.

If the DNR doesn’t allow the herd to be moved — and, even if they do, if the city can’t find some place willing to take the creatures — the animals will have to be shot.

Alessandrini’s fellow council members and City Manager Jordan Stanchina could not be reached for comment on this story.

Michigan has nearly 300 captive deer and elk operations, less than one-tenth of which exhibit the animals to the public, like in Iron Mountain. Most of the operations are farms for meat or hides.

Though many Iron Mountain residents express disgust at the animals’ living conditions, for others, the deer pen is a cherished part of visiting the park.

Alessandrini, who voted against closing the enclosure, said he’d like to see the animals moved somewhere else and see the city make the upgrades to the pen and bring in new animals that the city could better care for.

“I’d like to start over,” he said. “It was a nice thing for all the kids and the older people.”

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After nixing castration, Iron Mountain to close deer pen. Can it save the herd?

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