Essex County Deer Hunt Begins Tuesday (Poll)
Do you think the county should continue the annual hunt?
Photos
Let the hunt begin.
The sixth year of Essex County's deer management program begins Tuesday.
The hunt will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays until Feb. 7.
Hunting will take place at South Mountain Reservation in South Orange on Tuesday and Thursday, and Jan. 29 in the afternoon only.
In addition, hunters will be allowed to track trails in the Hilltop Reservation and the old Essex County Hospital Center site in North Caldwell in the mornings and afternoons on Jan 31, as well as on Feb. 5 and 7.
The hunt has been scaled back this year. The program has been reduced from 24 hunting sessions in 12 days in 2012 to nine sessions in six days this year.
Open/Closed
During the deer hunt, the reservations and Fairview Avenue in Cedar Grove will be closed.
The following county recreational areas will remain open:
- Turtle Back Zoo
- Codey Arena
- The Park N Ride
- McLoone's Boathouse.
For more information, call 973-621-4400.
WCald MOM
9:42 am on Wednesday, January 23, 2013
With all the advances in medicine and technology today, can't someone invent a pellet that can render these deer sterile, and therefore decrease the population explosion without killing them??? Or how about this---STOP taking away their habitat--isn't the HUMAN population around here excessive enough??? Do we really need more townhouses or office buildings, parking lots, etc?
Susan
11:50 am on Thursday, January 24, 2013
It's a sad day that we as a society condone the killing of innocent animals, Many of the shooters do this for sport and are not even professional hunters. These animals are left in pain. Time to reconsider what we may do to be a kinder, more humane society. I think it is a disgrace.
Essex Hiker
10:21 am on Tuesday, February 5, 2013
We now have 50% more deer in New Jersey than we had before European settlement, even with 8 million more inhabitants. So development (all those nice homes with their juicy landscaping) hasn't had the negative impact on deer population that some might think. Development has, however, removed deer's natural predators (mountain lions, wolves). Up until the 1970's, subsistence and recreational hunting did a pretty good job of keeping the population down. However, suburban growth over the past 40 years, combined with hunt-free zoning, created the perfect environment for Bambi to eat and reproduce. Since herbivores do not practice abstinence or family plannting, deer numbers exploded. If bringing back large predators is impractical or would create a human safety hazard, then some other method must be used to keep the deer population in balance with available habitat. Immunocontraceptives like GonaCon cost more than $3,000 per deer to attain 90% infertility, and it takes more than 10 years to reduce any one population using that method. Surgical sterilization is less expensive and more effective, but is a waste of money unless neighboring towns are simultaneously controlling their own deer populations (otherwise you'll have immigration and re-population). Until those towns do so, Essex County's sharpshooting program is less expensive and more effective than the alternatives.