Millstone will cull population of deer
Officials agree to allow organized, scheduled hunts in the autumn
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

MILLSTONE — Officials could rely on bow hunters to thin the deer population in the township.

The Township Committee welcomed various state and other officials to their May 18 meeting to discuss deer management issues in Millstone. The township’s Open Space and Farmland Preservation Council sponsored the presentation.

Susan Martka, a principal wildlife biologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, provided deer road kill information for Millstone.

“From September 2003 to September 2004, Millstone had 153 deer-vehicle accidents,” Martka said. Monmouth County had 2,009 total, the third highest number in the state.”

Martka said Millstone had the sixth highest number of deer related accidents in Monmouth County, following Freehold with 347, Howell with 292, Colts Neck with 244, Manalapan with 217, and Marlboro with 216.

Leonard Wolgast, a professor in the Department of Ecology at Rutgers University and a member of the National Rifle Association, said, “Wild animals can have an impact on a habitat and can alter the vegetation common to that area.”

Wolgast said white-tail-deer “have a huge capability to alter its habitat for itself and other species.”

“If you put a fence up around your field, deer will move on to less preferable food sources, like ornamental shrubs, and then, when those are gone, they will move to emergency foods,” Wolgast said.

Although Wolgast said the condition of area wooded areas has yet to signify that the deer population has to rely on “emergency food sources.” He recommended a thinning of the herd in Millstone Township.

“Deer starvation and losses occur when the population increases above the habitat’s carrying capacity,” Wolgast said.

Wolgast estimated that there are approximately 160,000 deer in New Jersey.

“We need to keep them at a density compatible with other land use,” Wolgast said.

Wolgast said the committee’s primary tool for culling the deer population should be sport hunting.

“In nearby Princeton, when officials banned hunting in 1972, more than 200 deer were killed in automobile accidents,’ Wolgast said. “Compare that to other years when between 32 and 72 deer are killed on the road. These automobile accidents happen in the absence of hunting.”

As a member of the federal Fish and Wildlife service, Wolgast said he knows Monmouth County has some of the most liberal hunting laws in the country.

“Here anterless deer can be harvested,” Wolgast said. “This is working because in one year hunters’ harvest dropped significantly from 69,000 to 60,000. If we could hunt on private land that number would drop even more.”

As a solution to Millstone’s deer overpopulation, Wolgast suggested that Millstone employ the services of the United Bowhunters of New Jersey (UBNJ).

Incorporated in 1974 as a nonprofit organization, the UBNJ encourages responsible bowhunting by protecting and expanding bowhunting opportunities in New Jersey, and by promoting fair chase hunting. The UBNJ supports and participates in improving sound wildlife conservation practices and the wise use of our state’s renewable natural resources, according to Jack Spoto, the president of UBNJ.

The UBNJ would use its Community Based Deer Management Program, which Princeton Township, the Township of Mountain Lakes and Atlantic City already employ, to thin the deer population, Spoto said. The program is a “no cost” alternative to manage the deer populations.

If such a program is implemented, the UBNJ would enlist hunters from around the state, but preferably from Millstone, Wolgast said. Each hunter would have to pay between $10 to $12 to join the hunt, but the township would not have to pay UBNJ anything, Spoto said.

Every hunter would register with the UBNJ and be assigned to a specific area in Millstone during a set schedule of hunting that lasts a few days.

“The township would have a responsible organization that would come in and set up and take accountability for the hunt,” Spoto said.

Spoto said within days, Millstone could accomplish a thinning of the deer population.

“In our most recent cull, in 11 days we took 395 deer,” Spoto said. “We grid out the area, get into the trees and shoot down, so the deer have no place to go. We are trained hunters, so we kill the deer instantly.”

Emile DeVito, the manager of science and stewardship at the New Jersey Conservation foundation, said, “There is no problem here in Millstone yet as the forest still has an understory of native species, but a few deer killed now could help avoid a population out of control in about five years.”

After the presentation Deputy Mayor Nancy Grbelja said, “I’m not a person who likes hunting, but we do have a real deer problem here. I understand the impact they’re having on us and our forests because I’ve looked at the vegetation we have here and I can see what’s missing.”

Grbelja said she favors the UBNJ’s scheduled hunts to “careless and reckless hunters with guns” that could put residents and the large horse population in the area in danger.

Mayor Elias Abilheira said, if an organized hunt took place, hunters would not go onto private property unless citizens requested them to.

The committee agreed to look into coordinating with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife to organize at least one scheduled deer culling in the fall.

The UBNJ have a scheduled hunt that will take place in the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area on June 12 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.