Essex County official defend deer hunt in South Mountain reservation

Essex County official defend deer hunt in South Mountain reservation

byPhilip Read/The Star-Ledger

Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. today defended next month's deer hunt in the 2,047-acre South Mountain Reservation, asserting that critics were creating confusion over what he considers a humane attempt to trim a herd destroying the park's ecology.



"It's unfairly scaring the public," DiVincenco said of claims that neighbors of the reservation have been endangered in the past and that notice of the so-called deer culling has been lacking.
DiVincenzo delivered his defense in the county executive's conference room, which is decorated with fabric wall-coverings depicting forest scenes and with a children's lion, raccoon, alligator and other momentoes from his trips to zoos.



With him were Dan Bernier, the county's wildlife management consultant; Dan Salvante, the county parks director; Dan Dowd, who has been hired by the county to help re-forest the reservation in fenced-in areas that keep deer out; and Dennis Percher of the South Mountain Conservancy, among others.
All tried to lay out the ecological destruction borne of a ravenous overpopulation of deer in a reservation where the vegetation was once so dense a hiker could get lost.



"You can't get lost in the forest because there's no under-story," Percher said. "That's being decimated."
Salvante described a landscape devoid of such wildlife as skunks, rabbits or even ants that he said were crucial to transporting seed. "Like walking on the moon," he said of areas whose plant life had been consumer by deer.
"They're really missing the point," Dowd said of the deer culling. "It's about what isn't there."
Last year, the Essex County program removed 213 deer from the reservation, including 88 does pregnant with 147 more offspring, officials said.



This year's program, which is to run on Tuesdays and Thursdays from Jan. 27 to Feb. 26, has a goal of at least 100, according to a formula cited by wildlife consultant Bernier, and is to be funded by state Green Acres grants and by the county's Open Space Trust Fund.
As a safety precaution, the reservation, with the exception of its main arteries, will be closed on the days of the hunt from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Licensed sharpshooters, who are required to demonstrate their marksmanship and pass an orientation with the county sheriff's office, will fire only from a height of at least 20 feet so the shots are at a downward angle.



As required by state regulations, there will be at least a 450-foot buffer between the sharpshooters and any neighboring homes, officials said.



By year's end, billboards will be in place at 12 locations in the reservation to alert people of the pending deer hunt, which last year produced 53,000 venison meals for the needy via the Community Food bank, officials said.
One of the critics, Lee Leonard of South Orange, asserted in a letter to newspapers that DiVincenco had declared an "open hunt" in the reservation in the midst of the decision of West Orange's governing body against the culling. He also lamented the sights of the hunt, particularly for children.



"People in this area saw wounded deer running around," he said.
Another writer, Carol Rivielle of West Orange and a member of the grassroots group Preserve Our Wildlife, said she was at a public meeting in October when DiVincenzo made the same claim. "He was going to open up the West Orange portion of South Mountain to open hunting. He said it repeatedly," she said.
Today, Anthony Puglisi, a county spokesman, said DiVincenzo had mentioned that only as a possibility amid the debate before West Orange withdrew its support.



In a release, DiVincenzo said it was appalling that people would suggest he would resort to intimidation and said that Essex County has decided not to conduct the culling in the West Orange portion of the reservation to respect that community's wishes.
The overpopulation, officials said, has led to the deaths of 321 deer in automobile crashes within the reservation so far this year. "This is a humane way, instead of getting hit by a car," DiVincenzo said. "I don't own a gun. I am not a hunter."