Submitted photo A deer eats grass on a Lambert Avenue front lawn recently.

Fredonia has a deer overpopulation problem, and there’s apparently no way to thin the herd.

Trustee Jon Espersen brought up the years-long deer issue at the Board of Trustees meeting, citing complaints from constituents on Chestnut Street. He’s personally seen “10 or 20” deer near his home on Forest Place.

Sizable gatherings of deer are a villagewide occurrence. There’s about a dozen deer who hang out in the plot of woods that is bordered by properties on Central Avenue, Newton Street, Lambert Avenue and Forbes Place.

“It’s kind of a slippery slope,” Mayor Douglas Essek said. “There’s probably various ways of reducing them. Guns and arrows are not permitted in the village, so those two are out.

“There are natural predators, the coyotes and cars,” the mayor continued. “Cars take care of some but there’s not a lot of coyotes. You don’t want to introduce coyotes into the village. I’m not sure about putting out poisons for them. There’s really not a very simple solution, and I think the (state Department of Environmental Conservation) is probably aware of it. … I guess we contact them and find out if they have any more thoughts.”

“We might have to ask our town of Pomfret residents to maybe put out corn or food to draw them outside to the town,” he joked.

“I wish I could offer a solution and the DEC, I think, has been contacted in the past. I don’t know as if there’s a really good solution. Tackle them? I don’t know… But if there are some residents out there who have some actual, plausible ideas to control our deer population, please let us know.”