I cannot think of a prior example of a community petitioning to continue a deer cull, but that is happening right now in Essex County.
After years of vocal efforts to block the deer hunts in several Essex County parks, this may come as a surprise: The volunteer groups that handle much of the conservation work at Verona’s Hilltop and the South Mountain Reservation are circulating a petition to not end the hunts.
Theresa Trapp, treasurer of the Hilltop Conservancy, and Dennis Percher, chairman of the South Mountain Conservancy, say that while the deer populations at both parks have been reduced, they are still “nowhere near” the 10 deer-per-square-mile density needed to allow the forests and their ecosystems to regenerate. “We believe that stopping the culling, even for a year, is extremely ill-advised,” the two said in a statement. “With no natural predators in our area (wolves, mountain lions, black bears), deer populations will continue to expand unless the County actively reduces the herds.”
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