Fish and Game Council votes 8-1 to authorize Princeton Township to continue its program.
By: David Campbell
The state Fish and Game Council has approved a fifth year of deer management in Princeton Township, which includes its ongoing experimental deer birth-control program in the southeast and potentially more lethal culling as well.
On Tuesday, the council approved renewal of the program by a vote of 8-1, with member Jack Schrier dissenting, said council Chairman W. Scott Ellis. Mr. Schrier has long opposed the township’s reliance on captive bolting to kill deer in areas of the municipality where sharpshooting is not permitted. He voted against the program again for this reason on Tuesday, Mr. Ellis said.
But the chairman said he and others favored the overall program particularly the ongoing pilot birth-control program in the southeastern corner of the township, where deer have been treated with the experimental one-shot vaccine SpayVac because the program, he said, seems to be working.
"There has been a tremendous reduction in deer-car collisions," Mr. Ellis said. "It suggests the program has been successful."
In the prior two years of the program, the council made its approval conditional on the Princeton Township Committee creating more opportunities for sports hunters. Again this year, through a change in the land-use code by the committee, United Bowhunters of New Jersey is hunting four parcels of public land through February.
But Mr. Ellis said that the matter of sports hunting did not necessarily figure into the council’s approval this year. He said the township’s application was almost identical to the last one and was just a renewal.
Anthony DeNicola, president of White Buffalo, the Connecticut-based firm handling the township’s program, said two deer-population counts will be conducted by the township in December to measure the herd size before he is contracted for a fifth year of culling with sharpshooters and captive bolting at baited net sites.
The township’s five-year deer-management plan has sought to reduce the herd to the goal density of about 350 deer total in the 16-square-mile municipality, or about 20 to 22 animals per square mile. When the program began in 2001, there were estimated to be around 1,600 deer in the township. Since culling began, a total of 1,181 of the animals have been killed.
The township essentially hit its goal density when the fourth round of culling ended last winter, but Mr. DeNicola has said limited culling in subsequent years would likely be needed to maintain the herd size.
The township says deer-car collisions have been reduced by more than 60 percent through its management program. The program also has aimed to reduce the threat of Lyme disease and impacts on gardens and woodlands from deer grazing.
In past years, animal welfare advocates have opposed the township’s use of sharpshooters and captive bolting, alleging animal cruelty and risks to public safety. Opponents have also argued that culling only spurs reproduction, and is therefore self-defeating.