NORTH DAKOTA NEWS: PETA Targets Deer Cull

Demands from members of the international group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (best known as PETA) called Mayor Brian Taylor to halt the plan for culling urban deer herds in Grand Forks.

The mayor is receiving hundreds of emails a day from all over the country, requesting that the city look into humane deer control methods. Of course, this was not a knee-jerk decision by the city.

Grand Forks’ urban deer herd has been monitored for over six years by the deer committee and their results indicate that the herd is growing at a much higher rate than would be normal for deer in their normal habitat. The city passed a no-feeding bylaw earlier in the year in an attempt to educate citizens about the dangers of supporting wildlife. The committee also released an educational pamphlet in the spring, again, to assist local residents in understanding their role in the survival of the herds.

Source: Boundary Sentinel

PENNSYLVANIA NEWS: Judge Clears Valley Forge Deer Cull Plans

Valley Forge National Historical Park can proceed with its controversial plan to use sharpshooters to radically reduce its deer population, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Calling the imminent plan a looming "bloodbath," animal-rights advocates, who were awaiting the outcome of a suit filed last year, had requested an injunction late Tuesday night to stop it.

But U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg ruled against that suit Wednesday, thus making moot the injunction requested by Friends of Animals and a Chester County group, Compassion for Animals - Respect for the Environment.

The deer management plan calls for reducing the population from 1200 to 200 deer over several years. Deer densities at Valley Forge currently exceed 250 per square mile.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

PENNSYLVANIA NEWS: Valley Forge Moves Forward with Deer Cull Plans

Officials at Valley Forge National Historical Park say deer will be shot there starting next month, ending a yearlong delay and commencing a controversial plan to dramatically thin the herd.

An animal rights group is contemplating protests and legal action.

The 5.3 square mile Park's deer reduction goal is quite large; the four year plan calls for reducing deer numbers from 1277 to 165-185.

Park Superintendent Michael Caldwell said Monday that the deer-driven degradation at the park made it imperative to proceed.

"We believe the best course is to go forward at this point," he said. "We'll await the legal process as it unfolds."

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

SCOTLAND NEWS: Wildlife Trust Calls for Deer Cull

A conservation charity has called for the annual cull of deer in Scotland to continue because large numbers of the animals are starving to death.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust said the harsh winter had left many deer suffering through lack of food.

It wants them culled to prevent "inhumane suffering" and further damage to Scotland's environment caused by large deer populations.

The stalking period for female deer in Scotland ended on 15 February.

The charity said deer numbers in Scotland had reached record levels due to the absence of natural predators.

Together, the population of the country's two native species, the red deer and the roe deer, total more than 350,000 - about double the numbers recorded 50 years ago.
Simon Milne, SWT's chief executive, said: "We are a wildlife protection charity calling for more deer to be culled.

"I understand that this might surprise some people, but our reasoning is sound.

"Red deer numbers have been steadily increasing in recent decades to the point where, in some areas, they are causing damage to the natural environment."

Mr Milne said the animals were facing a "double whammy" because they were competing for limited food and also had to contend with prolonged wintery weather.

He added: "Red deer are really a woodland species and the now treeless environment of many parts of Scotland simply does not satisfy their basic need for shelter, particularly in bad weather.

"Too many deer and not enough food is resulting in starvation."

Source: BBC

PENNSYLVANIA NEWS: Valley Forge NP Hunt Postponed

The National Park Service has called off its plan to deploy silencer-equipped sharpshooters this winter to cull the nearly 1,300 deer overtaking Valley Forge.

With a lawsuit pending and facing the logistics of deploying contract shooters before spring, the government decided to put off a long-planned hunt at Valley Forge National Historical Park until at least next November, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Bernstein told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Where George Washington's tattered troops once scrambled for food and shelter, the exploding white-tailed deer population now enjoys a generous habitat of field and forest. But they eat up so many plants, officials say, they are throwing the park's environmental balance out of whack. They are also blamed for scores of vehicle accidents within the park each year and for wreaking havoc on suburban gardens nearby.

"They cause so much damage to the environment, so many road accidents. And the roadkill — so many deer end up lying on the road. No one wants that, whether you want the deer there or not," said Julia Urwin, 52, of Tredyffrin, who supports the hunt.

After years of heated debate and a congressional mandate to deal with the burgeoning deer colony, the park service decided this fall to cull the herd by 80 percent over four years through nighttime hunts.

Animal-rights activists believe the park should be maintained by natural means, and filed suit to try to block the kill in the 3,500-acre oasis west of Philadelphia.

Others doubt the plan is safe, given that homes, hotels and malls now surround the land where Washington's Continental Army spent the winter of 1777-1778.

"The culling never works ... and I think it teaches our kids the wrong thing," said Priscilla Cohn of Villanova, a retired philosophy professor who runs a small animal-rights foundation. She argues that deer herds invariably bounce back after a hunt, as better-fed survivors produce more offspring and other deer move in to fill the vacuum.

"I'm a believer in science," she said. "Shooting is from the last couple of centuries."

Cohn's foundation has offered about $120,000 for deer contraception and fencing to protect vegetation, but the offer is only good if no deer are slain. Park officials, she said, have ignored her.

The park management plan endorses the use of contraceptives for herd maintenance, but said their effectiveness should be further studied. Meanwhile, they say the deer problem is too severe to wait.

"Our plan is linked strongly to our mission at Valley Forge ... to preserve the historic resources, the natural resources and certainly the landscape," said park Superintendent Michael Caldwell. "It's science-based, it's safe, and there's been an extensive amount of public involvement."

Deer problems plague many parks throughout the East, and similar debates about how to shrink deer herds have played out for years. In the 1990s, Gettysburg National Military Park's deer population was reduced by a hunt from 4,000 to just over 200.
In Valley Forge, the post-hunt target population is 175.

"This park couldn't be better habitat for white-tailed deer. It is the perfect mix of field and forest," said Kristina Heister, the park's natural resource manager. "If you have 1,300 deer on the landscape, I bet it's hard for a squirrel to even find an acorn on the forest floor."

The habitat loss has caused birds, butterflies and other dependent wildlife to disappear, officials say.

The National Park Service cites restoration of that ecological balance as its primary reason for the cull, with a secondary goal of reducing the risk of chronic wasting disease, a mad-cow-like brain disease. The disease has been found in adjacent states, but not in Pennsylvania, and foes of the hunt question whether a smaller herd size reduces risk.

Meanwhile, about 90 deer-vehicle collisions occur each year on the busy state road and several commuter shortcuts that dissect the park, Heister said. No one was seriously hurt last year, she said.

Logistics may be as much at play as the lawsuit in this week's agreement to delay the hunt until next winter.

Park officials had set a Jan. 5 deadline for contractors to bid on the hunting operation, and said they needed about two months after that to initiate it. That left little time for the culling operation during the key winter months.

A lawyer for the groups involved in the suit, Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and Pennsylvania-based Compassion for Animals, Respect for the Environment, said Wednesday they are thrilled by the one-year reprieve.

"The fact that they're not managing the parks in a natural way is really what's driving our concern," said Michael R. Harris, a University of Denver environmental law professor who represents them. "They're supposed to be managed in a wild state."
Harris endorses the use of coyotes — already present in the region — to thin the deer population. If that means suburbanites must learn to live with predators in their midst, so be it, he said.

That approach startles some who use the park's 26 miles of hiking and biking paths, including economist Philip Senechal of Philadelphia.

"I don't like the idea of introducing predators. I think that's risky," Senechal said.

Source: AP

PENNSYLVANIA NEWS: Lower Merion Hunt Scheduled, Friends of Animals Dismayed

As a planned federal deer shoot was scheduled to begin last night in Lower Merion Township, animal-rights activists expressed their opposition and compared it to the deer cull they have sued to stop in Valley Forge.

"The ethical issues are basically the same," said Lee Hall of Devon, legal director of the Friends of Animals organization.

Although the group sued to stop the plan to shoot more than 1,500 deer in Valley Forge National Historical Park, similar action has not been taken over the culling of 576 deer planned in the next several years in Lower Merion.

A two-person team, one shooter and one spotter, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be shooting deer in baited fields on township and private land all week from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. A USDA spokeswoman said the team will return for another weeklong cull in December, with the aim of reducing Lower Merion's deer population by 100 this year.

On a good night, the team could harvest up to 20 deer, whose meat will be donated to food banks, said Carol Bannerman, spokeswoman for the USDA. She would not specify where the cull would happen within the township. She said safety and efficiency concerns would prevent allowing private citizens to observe the hunt, which Lower Merion police are supervising.

"It can be a rather quiet operation," Bannerman said.

No township roads are being closed during the nighttime cull, in which the sharpshooter uses a silenced rifle and night-vision accessories.

Lower Merion and federal officials said the township's population is 44 to 58 deer per square mile, far above recommendations that suburbs have 10 deer, or fewer, per square mile. The cull is intended in part to reduce car-deer collisions in the township and the risk of Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks.

Hall said that safe, slower driving would be a better means to reduce auto accidents with deer, and that deer ticks could shift to family dogs and cats if the deer population is suddenly reduced. Deer culls, she added, are a brutal form of population control and often kill mainly the strongest animals.

"We are affecting evolution," she said.

Hall said legal action might be considered over the Lower Merion shoot, though the township is not subject to the national-parks laws under which Valley Forge was sued. No protest is planned against this round of culling, Hall said, though her group has a plan to distribute literature and post signs at the time of the planned December shoot.

Another area animal-rights activist and plaintiff from the Valley Forge lawsuit said she was unlikely to take similar action over the Lower Merion kill.

Though "definitely opposed" to all deer culls, Allison Memmo Geiger - president of Compassion for Animals, Respect the Environment - said her West Chester-based group, which sued over the Valley Forge shoot, has not been as active against the Lower Merion one.

"Valley Forge is a national park, so we were able to join with people on a national level for support," Geiger said. "I don't live in Lower Merion, so I have very little say there."

Source: Philly.com

PENNSYLVANIA NEWS: Valley Forge NP Sued Over Deer Management

Valley Forge is 5.5 square miles. There are an estimated 232 per square mile, or about 10 times more than the park can support. I would love to see the parasite loads on these deer.

Two animal-rights groups filed suit in federal court yesterday to stop officials at Valley Forge National Historical Park from going ahead with a plan to shoot more than 1,500 deer.

Deploying sharpshooters in winter, the season when George Washington's troops suffered at Valley Forge, "is not only an appalling twist on the park's history," the suit says, but "another sign that the National Park Service has abandoned its century-old mission to strive for parks in which conservation of nature is paramount."

The filing by Friends of Animals, a national advocacy group, and Compassion for Animals, Respect the Environment (CARE), a West Chester organization, was lodged against park Superintendent Michael Caldwell, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, the National Park Service as an agency, and other park service officials.

Caldwell, reached yesterday evening, said he had not seen the lawsuit but knows that the park is acting properly.

"I'm confident in the proficiency of the plan, and we believe in its scientific validity, and we've had a transparent process," he said. "I believe in the plan and where it's headed."

Anthony Conte, an attorney for the park service, said he had not seen the lawsuit. Frank Quimby, a spokesman for the Department of the Interior, said the agency does not comment on litigation.

Park officials intend to reduce the herd by 86 percent - from an estimated 1,277 deer to between 165 and 185 - during the next four years. Federal employees or contractors are to fire silencer-equipped rifles, mostly at night, at deer lured to areas baited with apples and grain. The shooting is to take place between November and March, but administrators have refused to provide specific dates.

Valley Forge officials say the action is necessary to reduce a herd that has grown big and destructive, gobbling so many plants and saplings that the forest can't regenerate.

Administrators plan to shoot 500 deer the first year, 500 the second, and between 250 and 300 in years three and four.

After four years, officials say, they'll maintain a smaller herd through contraceptives and additional shoots. They estimate that shooting deer will cost between $2.0 million and $2.9 million during the next 15 years.

The plan has provoked enormous controversy among people who live near Valley Forge, site of the Continental Army's 1777-78 winter encampment, with residents both opposed and in favor.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court for the Eastern District, said that the park study that blamed deer for ruined vegetation was flawed, and that the law requires the park to protect and conserve natural resources - including deer.

"We want the park to just let them be," said Allison Memmo Geiger, president of CARE.

Unlike the paved roads, concrete buildings, and rebuilt log cabins in the park, the suit says, deer were present before, during and after Washington's encampment, making them part of the cultural and historical resources.

The suit claims that park service officials failed to follow federal laws and regulations in developing their plan to control deer. Among those failures, the suit said, is that the park gave short shrift to the idea of introducing coyotes as natural predators.

Studies show that coyotes can safely and effectively reduce urban deer populations, and improve the health of plants, said Michael Harris, who prepared the suit as director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Denver. Coyotes kill the sick and weak, but more than that, they harass the herd, making deer wary of grazing and limiting their ability to freely reproduce.

The suit said the park also failed to consider how gunfire could endanger park visitors, local residents, and drivers on surrounding highways.

"The government's desire to deploy a rifle team to war on the deer," said Lee Hall, legal director for Friends of Animals, "lacks biological, ecological, and ethical sense."

Source: Philly.com

KANSAS NEWS: Shawnee Mission Park Cull Needs Security

Officials with the Johnson County Parks and Recreation Department say there will be tight security as efforts to reduce the deer herd in Shawnee Mission Park get under way.

Efforts to decrease the deer heard by 75% are scheduled to begin by the end of this week. County law enforcement officials are being trained by special sharpshooters. The park will be closed at the time the shooting takes place.

Opposition to the harvest has grown intense in recent weeks. Park spokesman Randy Knight says the county is taking threats by opponents to disrupt the harvest seriously.

Knight: "We're certainly not gonna publicize the dates, and they have not been set yet, but even when they are , it's a law enforcement operation and for public safety reasons we will not inform the public."

The perimeter of the park will be closely monitored by law enforcement officials, and Knight says the shooters will be located in a very small section of the park.

Source: KCUR

KANSAS NEWS: Animal Rights Group to Defend 200 Deer Per Square Mile

A new animal-rights group is pledging to defend the deer in Shawnee Mission Park.

Jason Miller, founder of Bite Club of KC, recently asked to meet with the staff of the Johnson County Park and Recreation District to discuss their concerns. Miller said that request was turned down.

So, he and his group plan to show up at the next park board meeting Aug. 19 and present those concerns during the public comment portion of the meeting. A demonstration is also planned.

In a unanimous vote last month, the board approved a plan to employ sharpshooters and bow hunters to solve the problem of too many deer in Shawnee Mission Park.

The board wants to reduce the herd from about 200 deer per square mile to 50—- a 75 percent reduction.

“If the deer herd in Shawnee Mission Park is not culled or reduced as humanely as possible, Mother Nature will do so,” said Michael Meadors, park district director. “And I believe it will be less humane—through starvation or worse, disease that could wipe out the entire herd.”

The Bite Club, on the other hand, said the park district’s plan amounts to animal cruelty.

“We have several serious concerns about the legality, not to mention the ethics, of the board’s decision to slaughter deer in Shawnee Mission Park,” Miller said in a recent e-mail.

The group’s motto: “Activism with a bite.”

Miller is also a press officer for a national organization, North American Animal Liberation.

Source: Kansas City Star

NEW JERSEY NEWS: Proposed Hunt Draws Ire

A deer hunt proposed by town officials has sparked the ire of several residents, who say the idea is inhumane, unsafe and irresponsible.

"It focuses on the desires of a select group of individuals: bowhunters," said attorney Wendy Bozzolasco, a Denville resident with an interest in animal rights.
Bozzolasco was one of several critics, some of whom live outside the township, who urged the town council Tuesday night to abandon the idea of a hunt.

The town explored the concept last month in response to concerns that the towns deer population has become so large that it is now a threat to the environment and drivers.

Council President Chris Dour said low-lying vegetation has been disappearing because of the deer herd.

Council members reached a consensus last month to work with the United Bowhunters of New Jersey. The nonprofit group, an association of bowhunters, plans to hunt deer from elevated stands in isolated areas.

No binding approval has been made, and details are still being worked out. The council hopes to run a 30-day trial of the program after the hunting season starts in mid-September.

Still, Bozzolasco and several others said the proposal lacks an awareness of all the consequences.

Former Councilwoman Laurie Toth said she thinks the town is too dense for the hunters to remain in seclusion. Councilman Nick Stecky echoed those reservations, saying that "kids don't walk on the paths all the time."

Above all, Bozzolasco said, bowhunts often don't kill deer swiftly or cleanly.

Instead, she said, the town should employ non-lethal methods, such as installing fences and trimming vegetation in grazing areas. Deer contraception and sterilization should also be done, she said.

That way, she said, the deer population will drop naturally as the food supply runs out.

Mayor Ted Hussa said yesterday that the critics claims arent necessarily supportable.

"We're not saying were going to have a hunt every year," he said. "Right now, it's the right thing to do."

Meredith Petrillo, Denvilles animal control officer, believes that not doing the bow hunt could mean more agonzing deaths for local deer.

"Mother Nature would be very cruel in terminating the lives of deer via starvation," she said.

Source: NJ.com

CONNECTICUT NEWS: FoA Protests Town Decision to Hunt Deer

No news on whether Friends of Spirochetes was also involved in organizing the protest.

Protesters lined the Post Road at Sherman Green Wednesday afternoon, demonstrating against a town committee's consideration of allowing hunting on public property to control the local deer population.

"The goal is to enlighten Fairfield residents to what's going on, where it's at and encourage people to start making phone calls and writing letters and let the commission know that we're not going to stand for this," said Nancy Rice, a Friends of
Animals employee who organized the rally.

The group held aloft signs that read: "Stop the War on Wildlife," "Ignoring Facts for the Thrill of the Kill," and "Conservation Commission: Do Not Change Regulations to Allow Killing." The protest didn't go off exactly as planned. One dramatic sign -- a photo of a deer with an arrow through its head -- was kept under wraps because a children's concert was under way on the green.

A hunter can now take down a deer on private property with a bow or a gun, depending on the property's size and how close neighboring homes are.

Conservation Commission member Chester Burley told the Fairfield Citizen last week that if hunting deer on public property is allowed in Fairfield, it would be very controlled and probably wouldn't be allowed more than three times per year.

However, Redding resident Lynn Gorfinkle, who has attended meetings of Fairfield's Deer Management Subcommittee and is a longtime opponent of hunting, said Wednesday that no hunting on public space, no matter how controlled, can be entirely safe.

"It will not work," she said, suggesting that large public lands won't be roped off and many people may miss signs that will posted about the controlled hunts, especially children.

In addition, Gorfinkle said hunters wound or kill 1,000 people in the United States each year.

The Conservation Commission's Deer Management Committee has considered various options to control deer overpopulation, and also has heard suggestions by the public. In addition to hunting, the options include trapping and relocating deer, administering birth control, using repellents and fencing off properties.

Gorfinkle said, "The right way to handle the deer population is to handle the perceived problem that some few individuals claim to have."

For example, deer often get blamed for the spread of Lyme disease, but Gofinkle said a deer is only one of the hosts for the ticks that spread the illness.

"Killing deer will not eliminate Lyme disease," Gorfinkle added.

If people have a problem with deer eating their gardens, Gorfinkle said they should erect a wire fence around their plants and flowers, use repellent sprays or plant things they know the deer won't eat.

Fairfield resident Debbie Lake said she has not seen enough deer to back up the Conservation Commission finding that there are 75 deer per square mile in town, even when she's in the Lake Hills area, where her mother lives.

Hunters looking for deer "are going to wind up killing dogs or kids, or anything," Lake said.

Gorfinkle said she suspects that "this effort on the part of the deer committee was choreographed through their contact with the FCMDMA [Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance] via Milan Bull," a hunter who serves on the Conservation Commission.

A few weeks ago, Rice filed a complaint against the Conservation Commission, claiming that members Bull and Burley violated the town's code of standards and conduct as members of the Deer Management Committee. Rice felt the two members are biased in favor of hunting, as one is a hunter and the other a gardener. The claim was dismissed last week.

In an interview last week, Burley said, "The fact that I'm a gardener and that influences or makes me biased beyond the point of being rational and impartial is as ludicrous an accusation as it is to tell a vegetarian not to shop at Stop & Shop because they sell meat there."

Calls to Bull were not returned.

Gorfinkle, who was born in Fairfield, said past history in various communities and states shows that killing deer increases, rather than decreases, the overall the deer population.

"There's more habitat for the remaining deer," she said. "Their health is amplified.

Their reproductive ability is amplified and instead of maybe having one fawn, a mother will have two or fawns. Hunting spurs the rate of reproduction."

Although the Conservation Commission has been accused of being pro-hunting, it is not following the opinion of the first selectman. Rice said she received a letter from First Selectman Kenneth Flatto stating he opposes the killing of any animals in Fairfield.

"It's good to know he's on our side," Rice said. "I don't know if it will help but it's good to know he's on our side."

Source: Connecticut Post

SCOTLAND NEWS: Animal Rights Group Objects to Island of Rum Red Deer Cull

ANIMAL rights activists have attacked Scottish Natural Heritage over a plan to have commercial shooting parties kill deer on a national nature reserve.

The environment quango carries out an annual "maintenance cull" of about 100 of the 1,200 red deer on the island of Rum, which it owns.

However, it is now offering the chance for a qualified stalker to take clients to the island to shoot 40 red deer stags. It is also inviting suggestions as to how a cull of about 50-60 hinds could be carried out independently.

It says the scheme is similar to facilities offered by commercial estates and is part of efforts to encourage economic diversity on the island.

David Maclennan, SNH's area manager for the Western Isles and Rum, said: "A deer cull has to take place. We can do it ourselves at significant cost to the taxpayer, or it can be a viable opportunity that, hopefully, businesses can benefit from."

SNH will provide the use of ponies and other equipment to remove shot deer from the hill and the use of the organisation's own larder facilities on the island.

But anti-hunting lobbyists Advocates for Animals have described the scheme as shocking. A spokesman said: "I am sure the public would be shocked to learn that the killing of deer for sport and financial gain in a national nature reserve is being promoted in this manner.

"Encouraging people to pay to come and shoot our deer for entertainment is contradictory to ethical forms of eco-tourism such as wildlife watching and photography."

He added: "Shooting must only be undertaken as a last resort and then by fully trained and competent marksmen."

Source: http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Fury-at-shooting-parties-on.3862861.jp

UK NEWS: Cull in Quantock Hills Called "Shooting Spree"

THE number of red deer on the Quantock Hills could be halved if plans by a conservation group go ahead.

The Quantock Deer Management and Conservation Group has sent letters to landowners on the hills to drum up support for a mass cull of red deer on November 30, which will target fe-male and young deer.

The group claims deer numbers are 'unacceptable' and that the animals are causing damage to forestry and farming interests.

The group aims to hold an annual cull over the next five to ten years to reduce population levels.

But the South West Deer Protection Group has condemned the cull and branded it "a shooting spree".

Its chairman Kevin Hill said: "One problem with the proposed shooting spree is that any deer in the sight of the gun might be shot.

"We're not against the principle of culling deer. Our job is to make people think.

"I'm into the minimum number being culled, but this looks like one big blast."

Deer biologist and secretary of the Quantock Deer Management and Conservation Group, Dr Jochen Langbein, told the County Gazette that action must be taken to protect farmland from damage.

"I think they don't really understand that it's meant to be one day of culling not a major slaughter of deer.

"We're aiming to try and get deer back to levels people are happier with over a period of about five years," he added.

"Almost every farm we work with feels there are too many deer and most are happy to see 20 or 30 deer roaming the fields, not 50 or 60."

The group hopes the cull will take place in the morning and evening of November 30.

The Quantock Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty group is also supporting the plans.

Group development officer Iain Porter said: "It's not designed to eradicate red deer but to bring levels back to a sustainable deer heard."

Source: http://tinyurl.com/2n3n8u

NEW JERSEY NEWS: Culling Plan Controversy

By LISA GRZYBOSKI
Cherry Hill Courier-Post Staff

CHERRY HILL

Township residents upset by a potential deer hunt on 180 acres of fields and woodland around Springdale Farms organized a protest for today.

They'll gather at Kresson and Springdale roads in front of the woods where a hunt is proposed so motorists can see how close it would be, said animal rights activist Stuart Chaifetz, one of the organizers.

"We're trying to rally the people of this town . . . about what's going on," he said.

The protest comes before township council's Monday vote on an ordinance to allow depredation deer hunts to occur in Cherry Hill, which currently bans all hunting. The state Division of Fish and Wildlife issues permits for these restrictive hunts, which usually happen in the summer, only when there's evidence deer are damaging crops.

The measure would let Springdale Farms, the township's only commercial farmer, apply for a depredation hunt permit, said Mayor Bernie Platt, who noted the township can't apply for such permits.

Last year, deer destroyed between 40 and 100 percent of the Springdale Road farm's crops, said John Ebert, who co-owns it with his sister Mary Ann Jarvis and her husband, Tom.

Ebert said the family prefers deer fences over deer hunts, which he called a "public relations nightmare." Platt confirmed the farm got a township permit Monday for a deer fence on two sides of the 60 acres it owns. The township, which by deed maintains the fence on the other two sides, agreed Wednesday to replace it with a deer fence. Also, the farm will soon reapply to the township for a fence around the 40 acres it leases from the township.

"A depredation hunt would be a last resort," Ebert said.

The protesters worry a hunt is too risky in a suburban area. They say deer population estimates -- between 700 and 1,000 -- are exaggerated and believe a hunt would wipe out the herd.

"They shouldn't rush to pass this ordinance," said Robert Gloeser, whose Kresson Road home abuts the proposed hunt's area.

He said the township should commission a count of the herd. He's also concerned 450 feet around buildings and roads isn't enough of a buffer and thinks insured sharpshooters should be used rather than the retired police officers the township proposes.

Councilwoman Joyce Kurzweil said she respected people's rights to express their opinions, but noted "as an elected official, I have to look at the long-term solution and culling the deer population is part of that solution."

"Wildlife in suburban and even urban communities is becoming a challenge all over the country," she said. "What we have to do is be good stewards of the wildlife in our communities and that means looking at a comprehensive approach."

Reach Lisa Grzyboski at (856) 251-3345 or lgrzyboski@courierpostonline.com