A Ministry of Natural Resources report is recommending controlled gun hunting to manage an overpopulation of deer in the Iroquoia Heights Conservation Area.
The report, issued to the Hamilton Conservation Authority earlier this month, suggests officials consider a deer cull in the area where the deer's "natural seasonal movement" is impeded by human-related factors.
The ministry's 14 recommendations are typical suggestions for areas with a deer problem and are "not unexpected," said Shari Faulkenham, the authority's ecologist.
But, she adds, this doesn't mean the HCA will necessarily do a cull.
The report will be a "baseline document" for the authority, but decisions will stem from the work of the stakeholder committee being formed and the HCA's board of directors.
The stakeholder committee will have the report while it deliberates.
Faulkenham flew over the Ancaster conservation area with ministry staff in January 2009 and counted 102 deer in a 65-hectare unit in Iroquoia Heights, where there should be 12 or less.
The ecologist admitted the cull recommendation might stir up debate.
"It's so touchy," she said.
Last November, the HCA closed the conservation area for almost two weeks after reports Six Nations hunters were killing deer in the area.
Residents said they saw Six Nations men in the area wearing camouflage and armed with bows and arrows.
The witnesses said the hunters cited the Nanfan Treaty of 1701, which gave them perpetual hunting and fishing rights in southwestern Ontario.
Roddie Perks, a frequent hiker who saw three men armed with bows at the site in November, said she was "definitely against" organized hunting.
"I don't know what the alternative is, quite honestly, but I really don't think there should be a cull."
While residents are concerned about the proximity of homes to the conservation area, the ministry's report states deer culls have been effective in some U.S. urban areas and First Nations hunters have assisted in culling herds in national park lands such as Navy Island.
The report, which is based on a study of 75 per cent of the wooded area within a 10-kilometre radius from the centre of Dundas Valley, also recommends encouraging "natural predation" of the deer.
But Jeff Jen, who lives near the site, did not like that suggestion.
"If you're talking about allowing wolves, coyotes ... in a nature park where people are walking all the time, that's completely unacceptable."
It also recommends winter aerial surveys of the area a minimum of every five years and that the local ministry management biologist adopt a winter deer density objective starting at fewer than 10 deer per square kilometre.
Other recommendations from the report:
* Prohibit animal feeding through a new harmonized animal control bylaw.
* Expand fencing to protect sen- sitive plant species at risk.