STATEN ISLAND — A deer captured in Brooklyn was set free in Staten Island — causing outcry that the so-called Forgotten Borough was once again being being treated as the city's dumping ground.
The deer, spotted at a construction site in Coney Island on Oct. 10, was sedated and brought to Staten Island, according to the Parks Department.
Staten Island has long been trying to deal with a deer population that has gotten out of control.
"We already have an exploding deer population approaching crisis proportions, and to release more deer into this overcrowded herd is unconscionable," Borough President James Oddo wrote in a letter to the Parks Department and Animal Care and Control that he posted to Facebook.
"Whether it is one deer or 1,000, whether it is one ounce of garbage or 100 tons, we refuse to be the solution for another borough's problems. Staten Island is a dumping ground no longer."
In his letter, Oddo called on the city to develop a short-term deer management plan that would prohibit them from releasing a deer in a different borough from which it was found.
The incident was first reported by the Staten Island Advance.
A spokeswoman for the Parks Department said the animal, which was believed to have originated in Staten Island, was brought back to the borough because Brooklyn didn't have adequate greenery for it.
"The movement of this deer last Saturday was a one-time occurrence due to the lack of appropriate parkland in Brooklyn and the need for a humane response," the spokeswoman said in an email.
"The City has proactively led efforts to address the impacts of Staten Island's deer population and joined an environmental assessment with the USDA — an essential step toward implementing a comprehensive deer management plan on Staten Island."
The rising of number of deer has led community boards and elected officials to call on the city to develop plans to curb the population.
Last year, Assemblyman Joe Borelli started a push to get the city to install deer crossing signs at several spots around Staten Island — including two where car accidents with deer were commonplace.
"We lose one person to Ebola and there's pandemonium, meanwhile we have a problem that actually kills people and you can't put up two, three, four or five preventative signs?" Borelli told DNAinfo New York at the time.
Earlier this year, David Oakes, 48, was the first deer poacher charged in the city and investigators said that about two dozen mutilated deer corpses were found scattered all over Staten Island — often beheaded or with their antlers removed — in the past two years.
Hunting deer is illegal across the five boroughs.
Since last year's study, the city has been working on an environmental assessment with the USDA to figure out the best management tools for deer. It's spent $100,000 to install experimental fencing around native plantings to help manage the population.
Officials did not say how the deer may have gotten to Brooklyn but in the past, people have witnessed deer swimming to Staten Island from New Jersey.
