Deer Hunt Back on at Valley Forge Park

The deer hunt in Valley Forge National Park is back on and so are the protests. Officials at Valley Forge National Park announced they would begin shooting the large number of deer as soon as next month. The plan would reduce the herd 86% and there seems to be no going back.

Opponents say that Park officials have ignored other options--notably contraception. In fact, one Priscilla Cohn, a professor emeritus at Penn State University, runs the group Pity Not Cruelty and has offered to bankroll a containment and contraception plan to thwart the shoot.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Cohn "suggested fencing portions of the park so the deer couldn't eat saplings and plants, and dosing female deer with contraceptives so they would not reproduce. And she offered to pay for the whole thing--$125,000."

No go. "It's been clear to me that they wanted to kill the deer," Cohn said. "Unless we're capable of getting public opinion behind us, and getting politicians behind us, they'll go through with it."

To be sure, the herd is extremely large and needs culling, but it seems irresponsible to me not to give an alternative plan a try. Research has proven that contraception works, at least according to Allen Rutberg, an expert on contraception in wild deer from Tufts University Vet School. "It works," he said simply.

In fact, his latest study demonstrated that contraception caused a 27% drop in the deer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland as well as a dramatic drop in the population of the deer at Fire Island Seashore National park.

Stay tuned. I have a feeling this fight isn't over even though it seems that the powers that be at Valley Forge National Park have made up their collective minds to shoot when they see the whites of their eyes.