Valley Forge deer-kill gets go-ahead

Valley Forge National Historical Park can go ahead with its hotly controversial plan to use sharpshooters to radically reduce its deer population, a federal judge ruled today.

Calling the plan a looming "bloodbath," animal-rights advocates, who were awaiting the outcome of a suit filed last year, requested an injunction late last night to stop it.

But Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg ruled against that suit today, thus making moot the injunction request by Friends of Animals and a Chester County group, Compassion for Animals - Respect the Environment.

The hunt is scheduled to begin at an undisclosed time next month. It originally was to start last year, but was delayed after the suit filing.

Lee Hall, vice president for legal affairs for Friends of Animals, said the groups would appeal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard M. Bernstein, representing the park, said the ruling would be vital to the park's future. "It's really important to the integrity of the park to move forward," he said.

The scheduled hunt, in one of the nation's most well-known historical venues, has attracted national and international attention and impassioned responses on all sides of the issue.

In requesting the injunction, the animal-rights advocates had argued that the kill would violate the National represent a violent twist in the "deer-human relationship."

"It hurts the heart to know that such beautiful, living, thriving animals will be brutally killed by the people they have trusted all of their lives," the petition said.

Park officials say the herd must be reduced because it has become so large and destructive during that it is consuming more plants than the park can regenerate and is affecting adversely the habitats of other species.

Over a four-year period, the plan is to eliminate over 85 percent of the herd - from more than 1,200 to fewer than 200, through "sharpshooting, plus capture and euthanasia," the park said.

Under the program, annual shoots would begin in November and end in March. Sharpshooters would aim to kill 500 deer in the first year.

Once the herd's numbers are under control, the park would attempt to use birth-control strategies.

Park officials insist they would use "extensive measures to ensure a safe, humane, and successful operation."

Inquirer staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.