Cape deer hunting opponents turn in petition signatures

Opponents of urban deer hunting within Cape Girardeau city limits delivered more than 4,000 petition signatures to the city clerk's office Thursday in a next step toward placing the city's first-ever referendum on a ballot.

Members of Keep Cape Safe, a branch of the Cape Friends of Wildlife anti-urban deer hunting group, collected the signatures during recent weeks. The signatures will be reviewed for verification by County Clerk Kara Clark Summers before an official certification by city clerk Gayle Conrad. As long as the certification is completed within 20 days, the petition will effectively suspend an ordinance allowing urban deer hunting within city limits that was approved by the city council last month.

The group had to gather at least 2,446 certifiable signatures in order to suspend the ordinance and place a referendum on the ballot, but at a meeting last week announced that 4,258 had so far been collected. On Aug. 6, the city council rejected an emergency measure that would have put the hunting question on the November ballot.

The certification of the petition won't be in time to get the question before voters in November but could instead place it on another future ballot.

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO

1 Barton Square, Jackson, MO