Shooting of Deer Backed

Shooting of deer backed

By Mark Prado, IJ reporter


The Marin Audubon Society has considered the controversial non-native deer issue in the Point Reyes National Seashore, and it has a verdict: Shoot 'em all.
"We are into protecting native ecosystems and we like to protect native species," said Barbara Salzman, president of Marin Audubon. "There are so many of these non-native species and they have an impact on survival of what is native."

The position is the latest to be drawn in the battle over the deer issue, which is seeing environmental groups draw up sides.

The National Park Service now has a tentative management plan for the deer in the National Seashore. The preferred option is long-term contraception injections and shooting by hunters hired by the park service, officials said. By the year 2020, all non-native deer would be eliminated under the plan.

Marin Audubon, which has 1,700 members, would like to jettison the contraception and focus on shooting, saying it is more humane to resolve the issue more quickly.

"We believe that it is actually more humane to shoot the animals," Marin Audubon wrote in a letter to seashore Superintendent Don Neubacher. "Trapping to administer contraception would subject (the deer) to extreme stress. Furthermore, delaying eradication only increases the number of individual deer that will ultimately be eradicated."

The Sierra Club Marin Group supports the seashore's plan of shooting and contraception.

"It limits the amount of lethal force, but maintains the goal of protecting and restoring the native deer," said Alex Forman, club member.

But others, such as the Marin Humane Society and Jane Goodall, best known for her work with studying primates in Africa, have come out in recent weeks to oppose plans that include shooting.

A public comment period on the issue closed earlier this month and the seashore received more than 1,000 letters and e-mails on the topic.

"We are working through them and we received over 1,000 different comments that we will look at over the next two to three weeks," Neubacher said. "A lot of the letters have different nuances. It will be six months before a final plan and we will talk to more groups during that time."

There is concern among park biologists that non-natives might out-muscle native deer and elk for food, water and cover. The non-natives also can carry disease.

Two types of non-native deer - which live up to 20 years - roam the 100-square-mile park: fallow deer, native to Europe and the Mediterranean; and axis deer, native to India and southern Asia.

In the 1940s, the species were purchased by a West Marin landowner from the San Francisco Zoo, which had an excess of the animals. The landowner then released the animals on his property for hunting. When his land later became part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, which was established in 1962, hunting ceased.

The ones that weren't killed began to re-populate in the area.

Today, there are about 400 Columbia black tail deer, the native of Marin. There are 275 axis deer and more than 875 fallow deer. Two years ago, there were 475 fallow deer.

Fallow deer were once concentrated in the central part of the seashore but are now found throughout the park. Their range has been documented eastward, beyond the park's borders. They have been seen on nearby private property and state parklands. If the migration continues, management of the species could become difficult, park officials say.

The animals eat 5 to 10 percent of their body weight a day, food that otherwise would be available to native deer. Rabbits, rodents and other animals are affected, too.

Until 1994, the deer populations were kept in check by shooting done by park officials. The deer meat was given to charitable organizations. But that practice stopped when the Park Service said it wanted to assess if shooting was an effective way to control deer.

Since then, the non-native deer populations have gone uncontrolled. Slowly but steadily they are expanding throughout the park and moving onto private lands, where they are causing some property damage. Some weigh up to 200 pounds

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