Sportsmen in Aroostook and Washington County, where deer densities remain low, may find this hard to believe, but it’s true. Other Eastern Seaboard states are dealing with too many whitetail deer!

For the first time in its 108-year history, the New Jersey Audubon Society is taking a stand on hunting, and will ask the state to reduce the population of white-tailed deer.

In a special report released this spring, the bird-watching group says white-tailed deer have become an ecological “stressor” for birds and other wildlife, by eating away the natural landscape. Hunting, the report says, is a viable option to bring the deer population down to a manageable number that doesn’t eat through thousands of acres of forest underbrush.

The group is also considering opening some of its own preserves to hunters.

“I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore,” said Eric Stiles, vice president for conservation and stewardship of New Jersey Audubon. “As stewards of the forest, we have to do something to stop this disaster.”

In advocating deer hunting, New Jersey Audubon is breaking its silence on the issue.

“It’s good to see Audubon coming out on this issue because we all see that the deer are causing a major problem for other forms of wildlife,” said George Howard, a biologist and former director of the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, which monitors wildlife populations and hunting. Howard is now the conservation director for the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.

The Audubon Society is calling on state wildlife authorities to revamp deer management strategies, and claims hunting policies are geared too much toward keeping enough deer around for hunters, rather than seriously reducing the state’s herd of nearly 200,000 whitetail deer.

The report also concluded that deer management methods, such as fencing and birth control, have very limited impact, and that the state’s entire ecology is at stake.

However, the Audubon Society contends that, even if all remaining open space were protected today, native plants, birds and other wildlife still face an ecological crisis because of the foraging whitetail and the invasion of foreign plant species.

As the deer eat away native plants, the ground is being reclaimed by more resilient Asian and European plant species like Japanese stilt grass and purple loosestrife, which the deer do not eat. In turn, native insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals are affected.

Other environmental groups have also begun to take aim at deer.

“It is our obligation to do something about it, to deal with the deer. White-tailed deer are a threat to our conservation areas,” said Mike Van Clef, director of science and stewardship for the Nature Conservancy in New Jersey.

His organization will open its 14 North Jersey preserves, totaling some 5,000 acres, to deer hunting this fall.

Widespread problem

According to Wall Street Journal reporter James Sterba, whitetail deer “are wreaking ecological havoc in forests across the nation. They have become de facto forest managers, determining today what many forests will look like 100 years from now.”

In Pennsylvania, that state’s 1.6 million deer are doing a job on ground-level vegetation and over browsing in many regions “eradicating critical habitat for many plants and birds,” says Peter Pinchot, director of an experimental forest on the Poconos Plateau.

Interestingly enough, part of this problem of too many deer is attributable to two factors: a decline in deer hunters and too many hunters holding out for bucks. According to Wisconsin deer hunting writer Rob Wegner, central Wisconsin is also losing its understory to excessive deer browsing. Wegner claims that Wisconsin is losing 75,000 hunters a year as aging hunters are not being replaced by younger hunters.

What does all of this mean? What does it bode for the future of wildlife conservation? In some parts of Maine, harsh winter climates and degraded wintering habitat will undoubtedly control deer populations. But southern and coastal areas of Maine are not immune to the excess deer problems plaguing other Eastern seaboard states. Like the other states, Maine is also experiencing a decrease in hunter activity and a decline in the number of younger hunters being “brought along.”

The alternative to hunter control of excessive deer populations is being exercised increasingly in these deer plagued areas: professional hunting teams hired to kill deer at taxpayer expense. This has already occurred at least once on one of Maine’s coastal islands.

The lesson in wildlife conservation should be obvious, even to the non-hunter.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].