NEWS: The New Jersey Fish and Game Council has given Princeton Township permission to cull the local deer population with sharpshooters. Permission was granted this afternoon at the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area in Robbinsville.
By: David Weinstein
UPPER FREEHOLD Today’s approval of Princeton Township’s application before the Fish and Game Council means hired sharpshooters who will employ high-powered rifles with silencers attached to their barrels are legally permitted to fire from atop trees at deer lured to baited sites.
Township officials say the plan will stem an annually increasing number of automobile versus deer accidents.
Only one member of the 11-person council, Elwood Knight, a resident of Mt. Laurel in Burlington County, went against the recommendation of both the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, and the Wildlife subcommittee of the council.
Township Attorney Ed Schmierer and Mayor Phyllis Marchand, who attended the meeting in a cabin on the grounds of the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area in Robbinsville, were clearly pleased with the result of the vote.
"It took three years to get the legislation in place and to get to today to get approval" for our program, Mr. Schmierer said."
"I’m glad it’s over," Mayor Marchand said outside the cabin after the vote.
"I wouldn’t call it a victory. No one’s rejoicing here, but we do have a problem, and this will allow us to solve it," the mayor said.
Instead of the township’s plan to hire White Buffalo Inc. of Hamden, Conn., Mr. Knight favored opening the township both private and public lands to all hunting seasons throughout the year.
"I have little sympathy for a community like Princeton that stops hunting and then complains about deer," said Mr. Knight, a hunter who voted in favor of Millburn Township’s lethal management plan less than a month ago.
"Each case has to be treated individually," he added. In the township’s case, Mr. Knight said he would prefer opening "the community up to all (hunting) seasons, and let hunters take care of the problem."
Plans are soon to be made, Mr. Schmierer said, to meet with Tony DiNicola, the founder of White Buffalo to line up the land that will be used as management areas.
Mr. Schmierer said those lands will include private and public lands, and Mercer County Parks lands.
Nancy Bowman, a member of the Mercer County Deer Alliance, an animal rights organization, said Monday she was disappointed, though not surprised, at the council’s decision to allow sharpshooters to kill deer in the township.
"The township has been lobbying for this with tunnel vision for a couple of years. I’m not surprised," Ms. Bowman said.
She said the Alliance will continue to express their opinion and look to recruit others who are opposed to the lethal management set to take place in the township.
Estimates have placed the township deer herd between 1,300 and 1,600, though Larry Herrighty, chief of the Division of Wildlife Management, said at Monday’s meeting the latest estimate is 1,625, or 96 deer per square-mile in the township.
"Based on that number, we believe this application should be approved and that is our recommendation," said Mr. Herrighty, who presented an overview of the township’s application to the council.
In June New Jersey enacted the law that allows for development of local deer management plans, including lethal culling such as will take place in Princeton Township and is now taking place in Millburn Township.