A war is spreading throughout the northeast. Hired officials are reverting to barbaric methods to defeat the enemy, with orders to kill over eighty percent of the deer. The abundant deer population in Princeton, New Jersey, sixty-seven per square mile, is taking the blame for the rise in car collisions, over fourteen hundred in New Jersey alone. The deer are accused of being the main winter host for deer ticks, which are the cause of lymes disease, and the destruction of gardens and farms (Bernard's Township Report 2). 2002 marks the second year of a five-year program in Princeton. In just one month last year, three hundred and twenty two deer were killed (Crosby 1). The township administration intends to cut the population from sixteen hundred deer to a scarce five hundred in order to balance the environment.
Methods implemented in Princeton to slim the deer population, such as sharpshooters and net and bolt, are inhumane and can be handled in a civilized manner. I understand the deer population cannot keep growing at this rate, but there are alternatives to the problem. There is a need for contraception and sterilization, methods that have proved successful in other "problem" places, as well as reflectors in the side of roadways. Not only are sharpshooters inhumanly killing deer, but also they are putting people's lives in danger.
White Buffalo is a Connecticut based wildlife management firm. They were hired to control the deer population in New Jersey, at a fee of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars (Campbell l). Their plan is to set up bait sites to entice the deer and then wait with rifles and silencers to kill them (Crosby 1).
"The hunters are allowed to work twenty four hours a day, with no notice to the public. With [University] students running through [the] Institute Woods, there is no guarantee of safety," stated attorney Carl Mayer, working on the animal rights case in Princeton.