Last year of extensive effort to cost up to $155,000.
By: David Campbell
The fourth year of Princeton Township’s deer-management program is expected to begin next week, Anthony DeNicola, president of wildlife-management firm White Buffalo, Inc., said Tuesday.
Mr. DeNicola’s Connecticut firm has a contract of up to $155,000 with the township for what could be the last year of extensive deer culling in the municipality. However, Mr. DeNicola said Tuesday that he expects to return on an annual basis to trim the herd as needed.
The wildlife specialist noted that future management of the deer population by White Buffalo will depend in part on how successful sport hunters with United Bowhunters of New Jersey are at harvesting deer on four parcels of public land in the township.
Princeton Animal Control Officer Mark Johnson said he has been in the field preparing bait sites for this winter’s culling. A total of six deer have been killed by UBNJ-monitored hunters since the program began last month, Mr. Johnson said Tuesday.
Mr. DeNicola said he expects to arrive in the township by the end of this week and begin culling and immunizations sometime next week. He said he expects his work here this winter to last from five to six weeks.
Weather permitting, Mr. DeNicola continued, he expects to reduce the herd this winter by 150 to 200 deer to the township’s goal density of about 20 to 22 deer per square mile a population of roughly 350 animals in total.
While this could be the final year of all-out culling under a program that began in 2001, Mr. DeNicola said he will likely return in subsequent winters to trim the herd by 75 to 100 deer annually. Future culling will also depend on the success of sport hunters in the township, he said.
Attorney Falk Engel, who has represented opponents of the township’s deer-management program in several legal actions against the municipality, said his group intends to monitor the cull this year, but declined to speak publicly about what actions, if any, opponents plan to take this winter.
"We continue to oppose the netting and bolting because we believe it’s barbaric," Mr. Engel said. "We continue to oppose the use of rifles in Princeton because it poses a hazard to public safety. We will watch to see what they do. We’re watching, and we’re definitely vigilant."
As in the last two winters, White Buffalo proposes to cull the deer at bait sites using sharpshooters as well as drop nets and captive-bolt guns to capture and kill the animals. Captive bolting, which has proven controversial for the township, is a slaughterhouse method that kills with a retractable metal bolt to an animal’s head.
White Buffalo plans to set up 38 bait sites in the township this winter, 35 on private property and three on public land, Mr. DeNicola has said in his proposal for this winter’s cull. Sharpshooting will be the preferred method where it can be conducted safely and with legal authorization. Captive bolting will be required where it cannot, specifically south of Rosedale Road to Mercer Road and in the neighborhood of Cherry Hill Road, according to the White Buffalo proposal.
In conjunction with culling, Mr. DeNicola plans to continue the deer birth-control pilot program begun last winter in the southeast corner of the township. Twenty does were vaccinated last winter three of which have since died using the experimental one-shot drug SpayVac. Mr. DeNicola plans to vaccinate about 50 more deer this winter, his proposal said.