Radio ads critical of net-and-bolt method.
By: Gwen Runkle
In anticipation of the state Fish and Game Council’s upcoming Saturday vote on Princeton Township’s amended deer-management application, a nonprofit animal-welfare group is taking out radio advertisements in hopes of quashing the plan.
The Coalition for Animals, based in Somerville, paid for the ad, which features a narrative detailing how deer are killed using the net-and-bolt method and calls on Gov. James E. McGreevey to "live up to his words" to stop the use of netting and bolting.
The ad is expected to run all this week on the New Jersey 101.5 FM radio station and Trenton AM radio station WBUD 1260.
"We are appalled with what is going on in Princeton," said Rose Reina-Rosenbaum, a Coalition for Animals member. "We decided to run this public service announcement to alert the public on what Princeton is planning on doing and to ask the governor to live up to his words and stop the horrendous practice of net and bolt."
According to Ms. Reina-Rosenbaum, the governor said in a December radio program on New Jersey 101.5 that net and bolt is "heinous" and "should not be duplicated again."
"I can’t believe or understand why anybody would want this to go on," she said, referring to net and bolt. "It is heinous and barbaric."
White Buffalo, the Connecticut company contracted to conduct the township’s deer-management program, maintains the net-and-bolt method is humane and the operation is typically completed in less than a minute, with the deer killed with the first shot of the bolt gun.
Last month, the Fish and Game Council, in a surprise decision, rejected the township’s proposal to undertake a third year of culling with rifles and captive bolt guns along with an experimental birth-control program.
The captive bolt, used in the net-and-bolt method, is a slaughterhouse device that kills with a retractable bolt to the animal’s head. Bolting was used in residential areas of the township where the discharge of firearms is prohibited.
In late January, the Township Committee moved to resubmit its core application with added concessions to hunters, despite misgivings expressed by some Fish and Game Council members about net and bolt and the experimental SpayVac vaccine the township proposes to use.
Last week, the state Division of Fish and Wildlife of the state Department of Environmental Protection approved the township’s amended deer-management application. The state Fish and Game Council is expected to vote on the plan Saturday at the Pequest Trout Hatchery in Warren County.
Carl Mayer, one of three attorneys who has represented more than 30 plaintiffs in several legal actions against the township and its deer plan, said that while his group had nothing to do with the radio ad, he is hopeful it will have an impact on the Fish and Game Council’s decision.
At the last council meeting, "There was a lot of discussion about net and bolt that put the Fish and Game Council in an awkward position," Mr. Mayer said. "They were obviously affected by the notoriety of the net-and-bolt controversy."
Under Princeton Township’s amended application, the township agrees not to conduct culling on private lands under contract with hunting clubs and to work with the division to study the possibility of opening some public lands to sport hunting in time for the 2003-2004 hunting season.
The township also proposes to continue its roadside deer-reflector program and to gauge the effect of deer browsing on forest regeneration with field enclosures.
Last winter, White Buffalo killed 303 deer with sharpshooting and captive bolting. In 2001, White Buffalo sharpshooters killed 322 deer.
Township officials have said the program is a safe and humane means to reduce deer-car collisions, the spread of Lyme disease and damage to gardens and the ecosystem caused by overpopulation.
The township’s goal is a herd of about 320 deer. A survey conducted by helicopter in December 2002 counted about 680 deer, township officials have said, compared to an estimated herd of 1,600 before the start of the cull in 2000.

