The debate continues to be a bitter one between the pro deer kill people and the anti deer kill people.
And it's no wonder.
One of the arguments that fuels both sides is the issue of population control.
The pro-hunt/pro-kill faction vehemently argues that the deer are over running South Mountain Reservation, destroying the plants and that the only way to keep this from happening is to gun down as many of them as possible.
The anti-hunt/anti-kill faction does not believe that the deer are the sole or even major factor in the destruction of the plant material. They also strongly believe that the kill that takes place actually stimulates the reproduction cycle. The more deer killed, the more deer born.
But facts are facts. There is no disputing them.
A particularly credible and logical response to the deer hunt/kill question has recently come to the forefront.
Wildlife biologist, A. T. Rutberg, expounds in his text, "The Science of Overabundance " that hunting often fails to control deer populations. The most visible weakness in the assertion that hunting is necessary to control deer populations is that it has largely failed to do so in the last two decades.
An analysis of white-tailed deer harvest trends in states east of the Rockies shows that the harvest more than doubled in the 20 years between 1973 and 1993 in 26 of 29 states surveyed.
Which brings us closer to home and closer to the facts.
The Great Swamp hunt in New Jersey could and should be a lesson learned for the County Executive and managers of the South Mountain Reservation.
Since 1974, managers of the Great Swamp National Refuge have been holding a 'management hunt' to control the refuge's white-tailed deer population. The results of the hunt are that the 1995 harvest was almost twice the 1974 harvest, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This data confirms the biological fact of Reproductive Rebound,a well documented population dynamic in deer and other mammals. Regarding deer, the number of fawns actually born is determined by a number of complex factors including nutrition and herd density. With competition for food reduced by a sudden drop in herd numbers (through hunting) younger fawns will breed and females will give birth to twins and triplets instead of single fawns.
And, in fact, after the brutal deer kill last year it was confirmed that more than half the does killed were pregnant with twins.
So, Essex County, are we listening and learning? Or are we making sure that these facts are neither exposed nor given consideration?
Hopefully, the populace will listen even if the County Executive and the South Mountain Reservation managers do not.
As John Adams, a brilliant thinker, once stated: Facts are stubborn things.
