Slaughterhouse Why

At the Sept 22 BOT Meeting, County Executive DiVincenzo presented his plan to continue killing deer in South Mountain Reservation this Winter. Last year 213 deer were killed at taxpayer expense in the Reservation. In addition, the County admitted an additional 5 deer were shot and "not recovered", but left to suffer.

I have heard from at least one resident who witnessed the horror of a deer so badly wounded that one of his limbs was dangling from his body and it was bleeding profusely. At the meeting on Monday, I urged Mr. DiVincenzo to stop this senseless suffering and explore non-lethal means of controlling the deer population. Doing some very quick research online, I learned of some very successful programs for immunocontraception to control deer fertility that have been proven effective.

Immunocontraception is a very effective and inexpensive form of contraception that is delivered remotely by dart, which prevents fertilization. One of the most successful methods I found is a vaccine called PZP which has been used successfully in Connecticut, Maryland, NJ, NY, Ohio , VA and Washington. Two of the largest studies were performed on Fire Island, NY in conjunction with the Humane Society and National Park Service, as well as a study in Gaithersburg, MD where the birth rate for deer was cut by 72 percent with PZP.

In addition to the moral injustice of killing the deer, there is the financial objection that, according to the Star Ledger, the deer slaughter last year cost the taxpayers $60,000 for the killing of 213 deer. That works out to a cost of almost $300/deer. The implementation of an immunocontraception program is estimated to cost only around $60/deer according to some studies. Also, if done properly, an immunocontraception does not need to be done indefinitely each year, as with a hunt. Some studies have shown immunocontraception vaccines to still be effective as much as 5 years after injection.

Finally, if moral or financial reasons aren’t enough, there is the fact that hunting simply does not work as a sustainable solution to reduce or even control the deer population due to the principal of reproductive rebound. According to many documented studies, deer conceive multiple embryos, but the number of fawns born is directly related to nutrition and herd density. When herd density is temporarily reduced through hunting, there is reduced competition for food and the number of twins and triplets born actually increases. One study even showed that after a hunt, surviving females produced enough offspring to not only replace those killed, but enough to actually INCREASE the size of the herd. This is reproductive rebound.

So, for moral reasons, financial reasons and the practical reason that hunting is an archaic, barbaric and ineffective method, I urge the County to explore immunocontraception and other non-lethal means of controlling the deer population. Together, we have the opportunity to show leadership to our community with a forward thinking and progressive model which we can be proud of and which teaches our children that killing is not the answer. For the sake of the taxpayers and the deer, I hope real leadership can finally be shown.