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And I hope you go to Deer Heaven .. or Hell - as warranted.

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they are deer asswipe....kill them all by any means necessary...poison, arrows (good enough for the injun) guns, a-bomb, smelling gerry's feet, ..whatever.

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quoting v#27
How bout after using gerrys deer head lopper, we put the heads on spikes all around the borders of mendham boro, perhaps the terrifying sight will keep other deer at bay.

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quoting v#27: IF we do that .. there should be similar signs on the side of the road where auto / deer collisions have taken place, neon signs for any people killed, and any medical and automobile repair bills to be sent to the only champion of the deer .. gerry the witless admin.
...How about Deer Poison ?

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Backyard culling of N.J. deer proves controversial
e-mail print The Record

Friday, March 16, 2007

By RICHARD COWEN
STAFF WRITER

PETER MONSEES / THE RECORD
arrowDeer feeding along the side of a road in Garret Mountain, Paterson.

The deer-killing tactic is called "net and bolt" -- and it has proved to be efficient in reducing the hungry herd in one New Jersey town during the past three weeks.

Since Feb. 23, a team of professional deer hunters from a company called White Buffalo Inc. has been laying bait and stringing nets in the back yards of Millburn, where some homeowners have been complaining about deer feeding on their plants and shrubs. Working mostly at night, White Buffalo hunters drop the nets when the deer arrive -- then shoot a metal rod into the netted deer's skull at point-blank range, killing the animal instantly.

"Cruel and inhumane" is how animal lovers describe net and bolt, which as of Thursday, had killed 38 deer. "Quick and painless" is the way others see it, particularly homeowners who say too much wildlife is destroying their quality of life.

One hundred years ago, there were no white-tailed deer in New Jersey, the population having been wiped out by rapid development and unregulated hunting. Now there are an estimated 150,000 stripping the forest, upsetting the ecological balance, nibbling on shrubbery and posing a danger to motorists. Just Thursday morning, a deer was struck on the Garden State Parkway in Paramus.

But although the counties of Bergen, Passaic and Morris have their own deer problems, more bloodshed is something that most North Jersey officials say would not go over well with residents.

"I don't think our residents would go for something like that," Charles Cuccia, Saddle River township administrator, said of the net-and-bolt program. "Living with wildlife is one of the reasons people like living in Bergen County. For every resident that thinks deer are a problem, there's someone else who likes seeing them in their back yard."

But Millburn resident Arnold Selby says residents have become prisoners in their own homes, unable to enjoy their yards because the deer arrive at night to eat the plants, then leave a trail of droppings. "I can't play in my back yard with my grandson, and I'm afraid of Lyme disease," said Selby, a member of the township deer-management task force who operates his own Web site, soquol.org, that supports the culling effort.

"It's a slaughterhouse in the back yard," counters Janet Pizar, a Millburn resident who runs a Web site opposed to the operation, netandboltcruelty.net. "And it's not so quick and painless. The deer are terrorized by the net. They kick and writhe and try to break free, and sometimes they suffer heart attacks. Sometimes the bolt doesn't go into the head cleanly. It's horrible."

White Buffalo, which is under contract with Millburn through April 15, charges the township about $400 for each deer that it removes. A homeowner must first give the company permission to go on the property. Once a deer is slaughtered, White Buffalo pays to have it butchered and donates the meat to a food pantry.

Millburn, in Essex County, is one of only two municipalities in New Jersey that have taken the drastic step of using net and bolt. The other is Princeton.

A last-ditch effort to stop the culling failed Thursday when animal rights activists appeared in state Superior Court in Newark. The activists argued that the township should have notified all property owners who lived within 200 feet of a house where White Buffalo had set up its nets. But Judge Kenneth Levy rejected the argument, saying that the plan had been approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection, and he refused to grant an injunction.

White Buffalo's president, Anthony J. DeNicola, did not return a phone call or respond to an e-mail seeking comment on Thursday.

Millburn has budgeted about $31,000 for the project, Township Manager Tim Gordon said, adding that only time will tell whether deer complaints are reduced. The township is on the edge of the South Mountain Reservation, a huge nature preserve that is prime deer habitat. But that land is controlled by Essex County, which has no program to reduce the deer population.

"Killing is not a nice process," Gordon said. "It will never be a nice process. But more and more people are calling each year about the deer problem. Is net and bolt cruel? Isn't letting an animal starve cruel as well?"

E-mail: cowen@northjersey.com
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Lethal and non-lethal methods

# The white-tailed deer has no natural predator in New Jersey, and hunting remains the primary control mechanism.

# Some 1,000 collisions between deer and vehicles are reported each week in New Jersey, said Rob Jennings, manager of natural resources for the Morris County Parks Department.

# In its net-and-bolt program, White Buffalo Inc. kills trapped deer with a bolt gun also commonly used in slaughterhouses. The non-profit also helps towns manage deer through non-lethal methods, such as trap and release, and is experimenting with contraception in Morris County.

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Plants always greener on the other side of the (deer-proof) fence
Sunday, March 18, 2007
BY LAWRENCE RAGONESE
Star-Ledger Staff

The plants are locked up. Literally.

Like zoos for young trees, shrubs, yews and flowers. Owners of many formal gardens and arboretums in New Jersey have put their valuables behind gates and nets to protect them from the ravages of white-tailed deer.

Now many are adding big time fencing. Thousands of feet of 8- to 12-foot-high fences costing hundreds of thousands of dollars are being installed to keep out deer that can turn valued gardens into wastelands overnight.

In Morris County, the park commission may soon spend a quarter of a million dollars to encircle the 100-acre Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morris Township.

In Chester Township, it's the $2.5 million restoration of gardens of famed landscape architect Martha Brooks Hutcheson at Bamboo Brook that will likely get substantial fencing.

Deer-proof fences also have been or will be added -- as unobtrusively as possible -- to the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, Deep Cut Gardens in Middletown, David C. Shaw Arboretum in Holmdel, Colonial Park rose garden in Franklin Township and a small natural area at the expansive Duke Farms in Hillsborough, among others.

It's an alternative to hunting and culling deer or to using deer contraceptives and repellents, none of which have stopped white-tailed deer from munching their way through public gardens and arboretums. The result has been a loss of many native plants and severe damage to many that have survived.

"The damage is constant and it's really disheartening," said Charles Zafonte, director of horticulture and natural resources for the Morris County Park Commission. "We know how good things could look here at Frelinghuysen, how beautiful this place could be. But the deer have done a job on what we have."

The arboretum's hostas beds, for example, are decimated by deer every year, said Zafonte. Shortly after they bloom, deer turn the big leafy plants into something more resembling celery stalks.

"They come, they taste, they like. It's a constant source of agony," said Zafonte.

An arboretum is supposed to be a living museum of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants that are cultivated for educational and scientific purposes. It should include a wide range of offerings.

The goal at the David C. Shaw Arboretum at Holmdel Park, for example, is to show all plants that might grow in the Monmouth County area. It should teach about the plants and encourage people to grow them, said Laura Kirkpatrick, public information officer for the Monmouth County Park Commission.

But deer have voraciously attacked the collection, prompting the county to plan to fence in a portion of the very popular park. Monmouth County previously spent $110,000 for fencing at Deep Cut Gardens in Middletown.

"We were protecting our incredible $2 million plant collection that was being destroyed there by deer," said Kirkpatrick.

At Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, an 8-foot fence was erected around the 13-acre property. It was a reluctant move that distressed some neighbors and changed the look and nature of the arboretum a bit, said Executive Director Gilles Misrobian.

"We would not have roses and flowers here now without a fence," said Misrobian.

The rose garden at Colonial Park Arboretum and Gardens in Franklin Township were under siege by deer several years ago, said Pierce Frauenheim, deputy director of the Somerset County Park Commission. Netting, held in place by bamboo sticks, covered many of the plants. Deer would try to jump over the nets, sometimes taking them down. In some cases, deer would get caught in the netting.

"It was a bad situation, looked horrible," said Frauenheim, who said fences were erected at a cost of $27,000 to prevent destruction of the roses.

Morris County this year expects to install 9,375 linear feet of fence at its Frelinghuysen Arboretum. It takes only a quick stroll of the grounds to see why.

Outside the front door of the Frelinghuysen mansion a large group of yews are surrounded by plastic netting. Nearby, a long row of the hedges are wrapped in netting, too. A series of young trees have protective caging. The rhododendron trail has several dead plants. A walk down an azalea trail finds no azaleas -- all had been eaten by deer.

There are costs to this damage, financial and aesthetic, said David Helmer, executive director of the Morris County Park Commission.

Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of work are spent annually to keep deer from eating the plants, he said. Donors who gave substantial sums to create specific gardens have found their investments eaten. Work crews are diverted from garden-improvement tasks like pruning and weeding to spend time applying deer repellent and maintaining netting. Also, educational offerings are diminished and some arboretum visitors may be disappointed by a lack of plant varieties.

"It's a sad commentary. But at some point, without taking action, people are going to tell us, 'We came here to see the plants,'" said Helmer. "And we're going to have to tell them, 'They're gone. The deer ate them.'"

But deer fencing, if regularly inspected and well maintained, can make a big difference in the health of gardens. At Duke Farms, a square-mile parcel called "The Park at Duke Farms" was fenced in to keep deer out, and a second fence was erected to even better protect a 33-acre "research woods" used by researchers from Rutgers University. The result has been a resounding success.

"Many native species have regrown. Butterflies and insects have returned," said Karen Kessler, a spokeswoman for Duke Farms. "We have restored some of the natural balance. It's back to the way it should look."

Lawrence Ragonese may be reached at lragonese@starledger.com or (973) 539-7910.


İ 2007 The Star Ledger

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