Township considers changes in deer management program

The Princeton Township Committee voted again in favor of a resolution to hire a wildlife management firm to reduce the local deer population through sharpshooting and the net-and-bolt technique. It is the third year the Township has looked at such methods for addressing deer population control — methods that have raised controversy not only within the Princeton community but at a national level.

After the Dec. 2 vote, the firm — Connecticut-based Wild Buffalo — determined it would need to kill 250 to 350 deer to bring down the population to a manageable level. Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand estimates the deer population at 800.

"Without a doubt this is a matter of public health and safety . . . and preservation of the environment," said Marchand, adding that there are around 300 deer-related car accidents per year in the Township.

Marchand also cited the loss of private and public property, Lyme disease and the protection of children and pets as justification for killing methods.

The sharpshooting would only occur in less residential areas, while the net-and-bolt method — which involves trapping the deer and delivering a fatal bolt to the head — would take place in more heavily populated areas. The committee proposed nonlethal alternatives, which are pending budget review, including immunocontraception for 50 deer and sterilization for 10 deer. The Township Committee also talked about maintaining highway reflectors to prevent car accidents.

"[Killing deer] is simply not a civilized way to handle the problem," said Carl Mayer '81, one of a dozen lawyers working throughout New Jersey and across the country opposing the deer hunt.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Mercer County Deer Alliance and other Washington-based animal rights organizations make up the prosecution, along with 50 Princeton residents, including University professors Peter Singer and Joyce Carol Oates.

Mayer said the Township's efforts to resist these lawsuits have been fruitless.

"Despite Princeton Township claiming that its opponents' lawsuits are frivolous," Mayer said, "Princeton has lost every motion it has made to dismiss these cases."

Such cruel methods of extermination take place to further the financial interests of White Buffalo and insurance companies, which pay out claims for car accidents, Mayer said.

Marchand holds that nonlethal alternatives will not remove the threat to humans, the environment, and the deer population.

"The bottom line is no matter what kind of nonlethal alternatives exist," Marchand said, "we have to get the deer numbers down and that can only be done through culling."

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Singer supports the nonlethal proposals but said he deplores the net-and-bolt procedure, even under the watchful eye of the Humane Society of the United States, which has been appointed as monitor.

"Any plan that includes some effort to explore nonlethal methods of dealing with the problem of deer-human interactions is an improvement on what happened last year," Singer said. "But I am disturbed that the net and captive bolt killing method is proceeding. What if HSUS [the Humane Society of the United States] says it is inhumane — as I would expect they would. Will it then stop immediately?"

The Township will go before the state in a hearing Tuesday seeking a permit for the deer hunt.