By: Helen Pettigrew
MONTGOMERY – Township Committeewoman Ali Henkel will ask her colleagues Thursday to begin taking several steps to address the township’s increasing deer population, including an aerial census of the herd to justify the hiring of sharpshooters.
"I think it’s important that, this year, we compile as much information as we can so that we have enough documented to justify the hunt," Ms. Henkel said Monday.
Ms. Henkel said she believes there needs to be an integrated wildlife management plan with three components.
First, this Thursday she will ask the Township Committee to introduce an ordinance to make the feeding of deer illegal.
Residents put food out for the deer, she said, which encourages the deer to enter residential areas where they damage neighbors’ property.
The second component, she said, is education – specifically, informing residents of the deer’s most active periods and advising them how to take caution during this time.
The final part of her plan is to hire a company to conduct a nighttime aerial census using infrared light to count the number of deer in the township and discover which areas are most populated.
Ms. Henkel said she and other township officials have been meeting with officials from Princeton Township and Hopewell Borough to share information about and find a solution to the deer problem.
Princeton Township is in the process of developing its own deer-management plan, which some officials hope can be instituted as early as December. It has been looking at three options – a controlled hunt by a professional sharpshooting company, the trapping and relocating of the deer and contraceptives.
Ms. Henkel said she met Sept. 22 with Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand, Tom Poole and Gail Ullman of the Princeton Environmental Commission; Janet Bucknall, a wildlife biologist from the state Department of Agriculture, and others to find out what Princeton Township already has learned about deer control.
She said birth control is most likely not a viable option because it has been proved ineffective, according to experts who attended the meeting.
Ms. Henkel said she received names from Princeton Township of reputable companies that could conduct the census.
"They’ve been really terrific neighbors," she said. "They say communities should work regionally and this is one area where it’s been very effective."
Ms. Henkel said the census would take place this winter, in late January and early February. It would reveal the locations of high-density areas of deer and would provide information needed to warrant bringing in sharpshooters if the number of deer is found to be unmanageable.
The hunt, she said, could take place next winter and a limit would be placed on the maximum number of deer to be removed. The deer removal process could take place over a period of five years, she said, with a limited reduction of deer each year.
Ms. Henkel said she also plans to request that Montgomery Township bring in a biologist to give the community an analysis of the damage deer have caused to the habitats of other wildlife and to residents’ property.
The Montgomery Township Environmental Commission sponsored a forum in May 1999 to discuss the growing problem, but at that time, Ms. Henkel stated, "our hands were tied as far as what we could do."
But Gov. Christie Whitman on June 30 signed into law a bill that allows municipalities to develop their own deer-management programs by seeking waivers to state hunting regulations.
Montgomery Township Police Lt. Robert Palmer said hundreds of vehicles are involved in deer-related accidents each year in the township. That number is likely to increase now that bow hunting season has started, he said, because deer startled by hunters often become disoriented and run onto roads in efforts to escape.
Mayor Don Matthews has said the burgeoning deer population also has wiped out vineyards and soybean farms in the township.
