Denise Moser and Bill Cane are co-chairs
According to Denise Moser and Bill Cane, co-chairs of the new Hopewell Valley Deer Management Task Force, the “idea of creating a volunteer task force to investigate whether there is an increasing deer problem in Hopewell Valley came about early in 2009 at an ice cream social given by the Township Committee to honor the many volunteer groups that serve the needs of the community.”
During the get-together, several members of different commissions were discussing various issues related to deer — including Lyme disease, landscaping and farm crop predation and deer/car collisions.
The question became: What, if anything, should be done about it?
From a lively discussion over bowls of ice cream, a new volunteer group was created. It is called the Hopewell Valley Deer Management Task Force.
The task force represents a cross-section of Hopewell Valley residents: from farmers and hunters, to ecological, forestry, and public health experts, to administration and law enforcement representatives, to animal rights and friends of deer.
The group has met several times, beginning late in 2009, and is in the process of working on several fronts:
—To create and disseminate a community questionnaire to find out what Hopewell Valley residents think and feel about the deer in their midst;
— To do a careful deer count throughout Hopewell Valley to get an idea of what the deer population actually is;
— And to educate the community via regular articles in the local press and a new Web site.
Residents are welcome to attend the task force’s monthly meetings, and can also access meeting notes, and find Web links, articles, a list of task force members, and other pertinent information on: www.hopewelltwp.org/current-topics.html. Look for Hopewell Valley Deer Management Task Force.
The next two meetings of the task force are scheduled for April 28 at 7 p.m. and May 26 at the Hopewell Township Municipal Building.