*Update from Valley Forge:  Since the deer management program started in November, biologists report 225 deer killed and nearly 7000 pounds of venison distributed to the needy, calling the operation “safe, humane and effective”.

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Valley Forge National Historical Park has been called an oasis in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  Roughly five square miles of thick trees, rolling hills and wide-open fields surrounded by highways, shopping malls and housing developments.

Predictably, the white-tailed deer population is thriving here.

Thirty years ago, a couple hundred deer roamed the grounds, roughly 30-35 per square mile, living well with other species.  Today, according to Park managers, their numbers have swelled to more than 1,200, as surrounding habitats were converted to public use and natural predators eliminated.  Spend a few minutes in the park and you’ll see groups of deer, roaming the grass, eating the trees and shrubs.

Kristina Heister, Valley Forge’s Natural Resource Manager says, “they are out of control.”

Heister believes the deer have been feasting on the park’s natural resources so aggressively, they’re killing the forest and crowding out other species like rabbits and ground-nesting birds.  She blames them for devouring the “understory” of the forest, calling it a form of “habitat destruction”.

“That understory represents home, food, nesting sites for an entire host of other native wildlife species” she says. pointing out a fenced-off test area the deer can’t penetrate.  Inside the fence the grounds are full and lush with young saplings, bushes and thickly branched trees.  Outside the fence the ground and first six feet of trees are picked clean.  “The Park has been significantly altered now and if nothing is done the impact of that could be very long term.”

As a biologist, you would think she’d be interested in preserving all animal life. Heister says “Absolutely, and that is what this plan is about.”

The plan is already underway.  Federal sharpshooters with high-powered rifles and night-vision scopes are prowling the grounds after dark, killing off the white-tailed deer one by one.  The meat is being used to feed the homeless.  The goal is to thin the heard dramatically over the next four years, reducing the numbers by more than 1000 to the once-manageable 35 deer per square mile.  Media and the public are not allowed to observe the hunts.  The Park Service says it’s to protect the safety of all involved and insure the shooters aren’t distracted while carrying out their mission.

“This plan does not call for the elimination of white tailed deer from this park,” Heister explains.  “There are our largest native herbivore in this part of Pennsylvania and we want to keep them here but as a balanced part of the eco-system, not managing for one species to the exclusion of all others.”

Animal rights activists call it cold-blooded murder, the execution of defenseless animals in their natural habitat on public land away from the public eye.

“Is there such a thing as too many deer?”  Lee Hall, an attorney for the group Friends of Animals ponders out loud.  “I think the number of deer in the park is a perfect number.  The number the park can sustain is a perfect number.  The deer will balance themselves out.”

“Nature is a great balancer, nature is a great healer and nature is restorative and letting nature do it’s thing is not only a biologically, environmentally sound idea, it’s (also) part of the responsibility of the park.”

Hall and her group filed a lawsuit against the federal government to try and stop the culling of the herd.  When that failed she appealed but the hunt has begun.  She says she won’t rest till the shooting stops.

“People ask me can I hear it at night,”  says Hall who lives about five miles from Valley Forge.  “The answer is literally I can’t hear it, but I hear it when I go to sleep. Yes it is very hurtful, it is very painful, the deer in this park are beings that I have seen when I hike, when I go running and my runs are not the same because I think of them and when I don’t see them, I think of them.”

She suggests introducing more natural predators like coyotes, putting up more fences, planting vegetation the deer are less likely to eat.

Heister says the Park Service has considered all options.

She says she can understand why people are upset. “I am a biologist.  Biologists don’t get into this field because they don’t like plants and animals.  What I tell them is that this is what the best available science tells us, this is what National Parks are about, preserving the bio-diversity of the system and what we have chosen to do here is the most humane and effective way of reducing the deer population.”