Township attorney says opponent lawyers sought Sunday order behind township’s back.
By: David Campbell
Following an emergency hearing this weekend, a Superior Court judge has issued a temporary restraining order halting Princeton Township’s deer-management program.
The township’s attorney said Monday the lawyers opposing the program sought the court order behind the township’s back, and said the judge issued it without hearing the township’s side of the case.
Princeton lawyers Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, who are suing the township on grounds of animal cruelty and reckless endangerment of public safety, requested an emergency hearing with Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson after they learned the township planned to begin the hunt today, Mr. Afran said.
Judge Smithson signed the restraining order Sunday, thereby ordering the township to cease and desist from hunting in the municipality with silenced rifles, from netting and killing deer with captive-bolt guns, and from enforcing a recently updated no-feed ordinance.
The two attorneys held a press conference Monday at Tiger Park in Palmer Square to publicize the court order.
They called upon Governor-elect Jim McGreevey and Princeton University to speak out against the township’s program.
"It is an across-the-board order, a total injunction that says they are absolutely barred from any of these activities," Mr. Afran said. "In issuing this order, the judge is saying there are merits to our argument that it is unsafe for the community and it is illegal."
The township now has 10 days to submit opposing briefs, after which a hearing will be held at which Judge Smithson will determine if a preliminary injunction is warranted, Mr. Afran said.
If that happens, the township will have the right to try the case, but with little chance for success, he said.
"Once you win a preliminary injunction, that’s basically the end of the case," he said.
"We’ve proved to the judge’s satisfaction that we are likely to prevail and win," Mr. Afran said of the preliminary order signed by the judge Sunday.
Mr. Mayer said the court order "is a first step to ending this danger statewide. We have to stop it here in Princeton."
Mr. Mayer said he and Mr. Afran decided to act over the weekend after reports from residents that bait traps and a field slaughter house were being set up in the township.
Mayor Phyllis Marchand declined to comment on the court action, saying, "I had no knowledge of this until the press called."
The mayor also declined to confirm or deny Mr. Mayer’s claim that White Buffalo had begun setting up bait sites and the field slaughter facility.
Princeton Township Attorney Edwin Schmierer called the two lawyers’ action this weekend "unconscionable."
"We’re really quite shocked at the way they went and sought this restraining order on a Sunday night," Mr. Schmierer said. "We’re looking forward to the opportunity to get both sides heard. We fully expect that once we get a chance to be heard on this thing, it (the injunction) will be vacated and denied."
On Nov. 12, the Princeton Township Committee unanimously approved its new deer-management program, and hired Hamden, Conn.-based wildlife management firm White Buffalo to cull the township deer herd by 500 by the end of March at a fee not to exceed $150,000.
Under the program, White Buffalo is permitted to use sharpshooters armed with silenced rifles at night and shoot deer from elevated stands at baited sights on public and private lands.
The program also calls for deer netted at baited sites to be killed using captive-bolt guns, which typically are used to euthanize livestock in slaughterhouses.
On Dec. 13, Mr. Afran and Mr. Mayer filed a suit representing more than 30 plaintiffs claiming in part that the township’s deer-management program endangers public safety and violates state animal-cruelty laws, and that its no-feed ordinance is unconstitutional.
This is the second year of the township’s five-year deer-management plan.
Between Feb. 17 and March 3, 2001, White Buffalo sharpshooters killed 322 deer from a herd estimated at 1,600, at a cost of $90,000.