Combining road kills with sport hunting may be enough to manage deer herd, report says.
By: David Campbell
A committee evaluating Princeton Township’s deer-management program says the township may be able to rely on sports hunters and road kills in the future to manage the size of its deer herd without intervention by paid sharpshooters.
"We believe that if a carefully regulated sport hunting program with goals is instituted and executed properly, White Buffalo will not be needed every year. Indeed, perhaps never again," said a report by the Deer Program Evaluation Committee presented Monday night to the Township Committee.
However, Deputy Mayor William Enslin said White Buffalo will likely have to be brought back for additional culling this winter, "a reality" he said officials have to face up to. The committee responded favorably to the report but took no formal action Monday night.
The program evaluation committee is recommending two key actions to be undertaken by the township: counts of the herd size to be taken annually, and the formation of a special committee to explore ways to maximize the deer harvest by sports hunters.
A count should be taken in December or early January, the report says, to determine how many deer there are in the municipality, which in turn will help the township decide whether Connecticut wildlife-management firm White Buffalo should be brought back for a fifth round of lethal culling this winter.
Last winter, White Buffalo President Anthony DeNicola said last winter’s round could be the last of all-out culling in the 13-square-mile "management area" of the township using sharpshooting and captive bolting at netted bait sites. Bolting is a slaughterhouse method in which deer are killed with a metal bolt administered to the head.
Mr. DeNicola said at the time that the township was nearing its goal of 20 to 22 deer per square mile a population of roughly 350 animals in total but indicated that limited culling would likely be needed in future years, depending in part on the effectiveness of sport hunting.
Under the advisory committee’s recommendations, White Buffalo should be brought in this winter if the count in December or January projects a herd "significantly" greater than 130 deer in the management area by May 1 about when does are expected to be giving birth to their young.
Figured into this calculation is the expectation that about 60 deer will be killed through deer-car accidents and sports hunting between January and the end of April, which means that if more than 190 deer are counted in December or January, White Buffalo should be brought in, the report said.
The goal is to have no more than 245 deer in the 13-square-mile management area by July after fawns are born which would be in line with the township’s density goal, the advisory committee’s report said.
The report said there are an estimated 175 deer in the 3-square-mile study area in the southeastern corner of the township where an experimental one-shot deer birth control vaccine is being tested, and that achieving the density goal there will take longer.
Mr. DeNicola is expected to move up the third round of deer immunizations originally planned for this winter to this summer in order to address what he has said is an unexpectedly high birthrate among does in the study area. He said Monday that those vaccinations are imminent.
In addition to the coming herd count, the advisory committee is recommending the creation of a special committee to explore ways to maximize the deer harvest by sports hunters through greater control and organization by the township.
"The simple truth is the sports hunters are not taking what they could or should," said Deer Program Evaluation Committee Chairman Thomas Poole.
Such a committee if formed would include hunters; police; a township staffer and Princeton’s animal-control officer; someone with experience in managed hunting elsewhere; and a landowner who presently permits hunting as well as one who does not, the report said.
The aims of the committee would include developing strategies to encourage a greater deer harvest through sports hunting, and finding ways to open more lands to sports hunters, the report said.