Valley Forge park plans huge deer shoot

When drivers approach Valley Forge National Historical Park from the south on Thomas Road, they're often greeted by hordes of attentive, long-eared hosts:

Deer.

The animals don't run from the noise of car engines. They don't bolt at the prospect of human contact. They stand and stare.

Soon those sentries may be gone.

Valley Forge officials plan a massive sharpshooting operation to kill up to 1,300 deer during the next four years, eliminating more than 80 percent of the herd and maintaining a much smaller pack through contraceptives.

Administrators say lethal actions are necessary because deer are devouring so many plants, shrubs, and saplings that the forest cannot regenerate.

"Our goal is to restore a natural, healthy, functioning ecosystem," said Kristina Heister, park natural-resource manager. "We feel we need to act now, and we need to act quickly."

The first shoot would take place next winter. Federal employees or contractors would fire high-powered rifles mostly at night, dispatching deer baited to areas with apples and grain. The rifles would have silencers. Some shooting likely would take place during the day in areas closed to the public.

Technically, park administrators are considering four plans to manage deer, with options ranging from doing nothing to killing most of the herd. But they've already identified sharpshooting as the best alternative.

The period for public comment ends Tuesday.

Angry animal-rights activists insist that shooting the deer is unnecessary, unethical, and dangerous to nearby residents.

"Free-living animals can control their numbers, and they do control their numbers," said Lee Hall of Devon, legal director of the international advocacy group Friends of Animals. "The best way to enable them to do this is to respect how they are, and where they are, because nature works."

She's unsure whether the park's count of 1,023 deer is accurate. Even if it is, she said, to say there are too many deer is to impose a human construct on a vital, healthy group of animals governed by larger, natural forces.

The deer at Valley Forge, Hall said, get all the blame for environmental degradation, which is at least partly caused by auto emissions, construction, and trampling tourists. The Friends of Animals has urged park managers to think about bloodless alternatives, such as extensive fencing - measures that administrators have rejected.

The white-tailed deer - honored as the state animal - are practically everywhere in Pennsylvania, from thick forests to suburban backyards. In the Philadelphia region, housing and business development has pushed into woodland habitat.

Many suburbanites see deer as nuisances that ravage gardens and spread Lyme disease. Others view nibbled plants as the reasonable cost of being able to see majestic animals up close.

Those forces are about to collide at Valley Forge.

"We're prepared for not everyone agreeing" with us, park superintendent Michael Caldwell said, "but we're also prepared to do what we believe is the right decision based on the right information."

Valley Forge is a 5.3-square-mile oasis of hills, streams, and forests surrounded by houses, hotels, and one of the nation's busiest shopping destinations, the King of Prussia mall.

The park draws more than one million visitors a year to the site of the Continental Army's 1777-78 winter encampment. At times, though, deer seem to outnumber people. Lack of natural predators and public hunting combined with an ideal habitat have spawned an exponential expansion.

In 1985, the summer deer population was 165 to 185, according to a study by Pennsylvania State University researchers.

By 1997, the population had more than quadrupled.

From 1997 to 2007, the herd grew from 772 to 1,023, peaking at 1,398 in 2003, according to a park environmental-impact study. The 2007 total was 193 deer per square mile, which administrators say exceeds scientific recommendations for forest regeneration.

Already lost, Heister said, is what biologists call the forest understory, the saplings and small ground plants. If the situation continued unaltered over generations, what is now forest would become meadow.

Heister said the large number of deer raised the risk of chronic wasting disease in Valley Forge. The park study repeatedly cites the threat of the disease, a contagious neurological illness that kills deer and elk.

But there has never been a case of it in Pennsylvania. Infected herds were identified in West Virginia and New York four years ago.

Park officials also note that there are, on average, 86 collisions between cars and deer in the park each year. More accidents occur on the park outskirts, and all are potentially deadly to drivers.

Hall, of the Friends of Animals, said the solution was to reduce speed limits, install asphalt speed bumps, and find other ways to restrain drivers, who often use park roads as shortcuts.

The park hopes to reduce the deer population to between 186 and 164 by killing 400 the first year, 400 the second, and between 200 and 250 each in years three and four.

The density of deer would plummet to between 31 and 35 per square mile.

In other places and with other species, maintaining smaller herds through contraceptives has proved problematic. Even after four years, Valley Forge officials expect to shoot 20 to 50 deer a year indefinitely.

Before settling on sharpshooters, park officials considered holding a public hunt, but that would violate several laws. They mulled surrounding the park with an eight-foot-high fence. Another idea was to shoot female deer with tranquilizing darts, then conduct on-the-spot surgery to remove their reproductive organs. Ultimately, deer-by-deer surgery seemed unfeasible.

So did the idea of introducing predators such as wolves or cougars. Wolves need much more territory to roam. And there's always the danger, however remote, that a wolf or cougar will tire of chasing speedy deer and pursue slower, two-legged animals.

Heister said using sharpshooters was the best option because it promised a fast, dramatic drop in deer population, which would help vegetation start recovering within four years.

Leila Fusfeld, a Philadelphia lawyer who leads the state chapter of Friends of Animals, warned that shooting the deer could cause a cascade of unintended results.

She cited a case in Australia, where officials sought to eradicate feral cats that were attacking seabirds. When the cats disappeared, the rabbit population exploded, wrecking the fragile vegetation the birds needed.

What will happen in Valley Forge if 80 percent of the deer vanish?

"We don't really know, and the park officials seem not to care," Fusfeld said. "The answer is to let well enough alone."

Doing that, park managers said, would guarantee long-term harm to vegetation, wildlife, and the visitor experience.

Hall said that until recently she had delighted in seeing the deer while driving through Valley Forge. But that has changed.

"Instead of feeling this jubilation that they have a place they can congregate, I feel miserable," she said. "Because they don't know what's coming."

The public can comment online on the plan to manage deer at Valley Forge National Historical Park at http://go.philly.com/deerplan

Or write to:

Superintendent

Valley Forge National Historical Park

1400 N. Outer Line Dr.

King of Prussia, Pa. 19406

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