Princeton Township government has accused residents Tamara Gund and Susan Ferry of interfering with a new birth control program to curb the deer population.
The New Jersey State Fish and Game Council approved the program on Saturday as part of a revised plan for culling deer in Princeton.
Township officials allege that Gund and Ferry have interfered with the program by stocking large bins of grain in their backyards from which up to 17 deer can eat at one time. This lures deer away from the baited vaccination sites that the deer-culling company White Buffalo uses.
But Gund disputed these claims, saying that she didn't know anything about the accusations until The Princeton Packet reported them last Thursday.
"They are accusing me of sabotage . . . I'm not feeding the deer," she said. "I have a poultry feeder and I have turkeys. [The deer] have lived here for 20 to 30 years."
Township lawyer Edwin Schmierer has been quoted as saying that if the deer feeding continues, the Township will prosecute the residents. Their actions allegedly violate a no-feeding ordinance that was upheld by the Mercer County Superior Court in December.
The program primarily relies on sharpshooting and trapping and killing with a method called net-and-bolt. It also includes the introduction of a new birth-control vaccine to be administered to 75 female deer within the next two years.
The birth-control program is a nonlethal method to be used in the densely populated southeast corner of the Township.
The Township submitted this revised plan for deer control to the Fish and Game Council after their original plan was halted Jan. 16.
The plan, which had been in place since 2001, was then altered to fit the interests of local sports hunters and resubmitted. It was approved 7 to 2 by the Council on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the deer-culling program will continue on schedule.
The United States Humane Society plans next week to observe both the lethal and nonlethal methods of deer population control.
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