The Deer Hunt: Taking a Stand

Signs for the deer hunt abound these days throughout the South Mountain Reservation. Starting on January 19, for six Tuesdays and Thursdays, the trails, access roads and parking lots of "the Res" will be closed. If you listen hard, you might even hear the gunshots echo.

It's a somber prospect, one I've come to accept with my new understanding of ecological reality. Our forest is dying. I've seen the reports, spoken with South Mountain Conservancy representatives, a key biologist, horticulturist and activist, all involved in the South Mountain Reservation reforestation project.

And almost daily, I've witnessed the destruction myself. Especially in these barren days of winter when the woods are cloaked in white, my view from the trail where I walk nearly every morning is bent with fallen trees. There are few spindly bushes between them waiting to bud with the first breath of spring.

Meanwhile, I scout for signs of deer and find them–mostly tracks, scat, occasional nibbled branches. I haven't seen the deer themselves lately, though they used to bed down right next to the trail. I often noticed them just a few yards off, staring at me with cool self-assurance. Perhaps those very deer were victims of the last two years' hunts. Or perhaps the deer now sense what's coming and are wondering, just as I am, where they can find shelter. 

At a press conference last Monday, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, Jr. and Sheriff Armando Fontoura touted those earlier hunts as great successes.  The hunts achieved their goal to reduce the deer population without killing or even injuring any human beings. That should comfort residents all around.

This year's hunt should be no different. The hunters–all licensed, experienced and carefully screened–will be using telescopic sights, shooting only in daylight and clear weather from blinds twenty feet up in the trees. The only way to shoot at anything will be down. The chance of stray shots is slim to none, especially since they'll be using slugs, not buckshot. There's little likelihood that scattered shrapnel could catch an unwary neighbor in the leg.

The hunters are following a carefully planned culling priority to effectively manage the deer population: taking first injured deer, then does, then fawns, then antlerless and finally antlered bucks. And the antlers won't even be kept as trophies by the hunters. They'll be removed and retained as property of the County. Distribution of the meat will also be managed responsibly. Participating hunters will receive forty pounds of venison in recognition of their service, with the rest donated to the needy and homeless through the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Still, there are hunters coming to our park–for some, practically into our backyards. Despite all the professionalism and official reassurance, they're killing creatures many of us love.

There are encouraging signs amidst the gloom. The length of the hunt has been reduced from ten full days to only six afternoons.  The number of deer targeted is only 50. In 2009, hunters took 80 deer, and 200 in 2008. These are significant reductions, telling signs that the hunts have achieved their goals.

Nonetheless, protesters like Janet Piszar of Humane Essex County and Humane Milburn object strongly, saying that they are choosing habitat for birds over deer. But that's not true. First, deer are an edge species, not a forest species, according to ecologist Michael Van Clef who has monitored the South Mountain Reservation's health.  Through their over-browsing, the deer are transforming the forest into a habitat that's unpalatable to both deer and other species. Second, said DiVincenzo, "We're not trying to eliminate the deer population in Essex County."  The deer management program is intent on bringing the ecosystem back into balance.

In the last few decades, deer have been pushed out by development from the broader swath of wild places that once were our towns. They've been surrounded by roads where speeding cars have brought at least 284 deer deaths last year, not to mention property damage and danger to people.  Meanwhile, the deer have nibbled the forest undergrowth to its nubs and, out of opportunity or necessity, ventured into our gardens to gnaw on introduced landscape plants.  Through all of this, with no natural predators left to keep them in check, the deer have thrived.

But the forest has not, as I'm increasingly aware. No more do I walk blithely through the woods admiring the fragile delicacy of the high canopy.  I see those distant, quivering branches above as signs of the forest's sickness, one that only human intervention can heal.

I am not fond of blood, am reluctant to destroy a spider's web or fill a snake hole in my garden, and generally won't kill even a mosquito unless it's biting me. Despite all logic and inclination, however, I felt the urge to witness the hunt.  Somehow, by respectfully observing this conscientious destruction, I thought I might be able to embrace the facts of life and death in this all too typical suburban landscape, and move on.

But when I called the Essex County Parks & Recreation Department, understandably they were reluctant to grant my request. Besides consideration for my own well-being, Public Information Officer Anthony Puglisi said, "We need to protect the identity of our hunters for their own safety."

Hunters needing protection – isn't that an oxymoron?

In fact, the adamancy of protest against the deer hunt is so strong that Dennis Percher of the South Mountain Conservancy reports repeated acts of vandalism to some of the Reservation fences by what he suspects are "eco-terrorists" intent on disrupting efforts to maintain and protect our wild spaces against the beloved deer.

With the camps clearly defined, I find myself in the middle, loving the woods, wild spaces, species both large and small, and wanting to preserve and protect them both through my words and actions.

Though I won't be in the woods next Tuesday, I have found a different way to personally help. I've stepped up and become a volunteer.

At the press conference last week, Kathy Salisbury, a horticulturalist with the Parks Department, spoke briefly about the other side of the two-fold healthy forest plan. While reducing the pressure from overgrazing deer, the county is replanting the understory. Forty-two fenced enclosures are already in place. Over the next several seasons, Salisbury said, these enclosures will act as seed banks where native plants can prosper.

I keep running into the enclosures wherever I hike–in the pine grove near the Boy Scout Camp, just beyond Hemlock Falls, and a little south of Turtle Back Rock in West Orange.

My personal patch of green happens to be the largest in the project – about 1500 square feet.  I won't be working there alone. Besides my children, husband and as many neighbors and friends as I can wrangle, I will be maintaining the site with Dave Hogenauer who regularly leads hikes for the South Mountain Conservancy.

Right now our site is an unremarkable slope dappled with yellow plastic tags tied to twigs.  These are the seedlings the Parks Department planted last year.  They are the forest's new hope that Dave, I and others will nurture.

To me, replanting native species and nursing the forest back to health are the gentlest, most beneficial and uncontroversial ways to take a stand. I'm still not quite sure what will be involved in maintaining the enclosure. But whatever it is–counting sprouts, weeding invasives, planting new seedlings–I'm feeling more attached to the forest and my responsibility to it than ever.

Meanwhile, Mr. DiVincenzo acknowledged that the deer hunt is a difficult, emotional issue. "I don't own a gun," he said. "I'm not a hunter. But I'm responsible for the land. Sometimes we have to make tough decisions."