CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (AP) – A woman known as the “deer lady” has been charged again with violating the state’s ban on feeding wild deer.

Anita Depczynski, 63, was ticketed by a state environmental officer last month in Stiglmeier Park in this Buffalo suburb, the site of two previous run-ins.

“I’m not feeding the deer. How could I? They eat eight pounds a day,” Depczynski said. “All I was doing was sprinkling a few bits of corn.”

The Department of Environmental Conservation in 2002 imposed the statewide feeding ban, saying human-fed deer herds increase the potential for chronic wasting disease, an infectious and deadly brain disease.

Feeding the deer has been a tradition in Stiglmeier Park for 20 years and the animals – given names like Piglet, Pumpkin and Toothpick – are so tame they eat from visitors’ hands.

The retired cleaning lady, who is scheduled to appear in Town Court Jan. 18, was convicted of feeding the deer in 2003 and released on the condition she refrain from the practice. She was convicted again in May of feeding the deer, and of violating the previous conditional discharge.

Depczynski was given a 15-day prison sentence after the second conviction, which she has appealed.

The latest ticket was issued soon after the Town Board voted Dec. 14 to institute a bait-and-shoot program to reduce the town’s deer population.

DEC spokeswoman Meaghan Boice-Green said there are three charges pending against Depczynski: the one related to the Dec. 20 ticket, and two other complaints given to the department.