Last week, deer hunting season officially commenced in Fairfax County. This year, the county’s government has allowed bow hunters to hunt deer in the county’s 18 parks as part of an effort to combat dangerous and ecologically harmful deer overpopulation in the area.
Though the policy has drawn outrage from animal rights groups and concerned citizens, the move should prove a cost-effective and environmentally unobtrusive solution to a dangerous problem.
The deer population has exploded in Fairfax in recent years because of a lack of natural predators. In some areas there are 400 deer per square mile, vastly exceeding the ratio of 20 deer per square mile considered healthy, according to a statement in the Washington Post by county wildlife biologist Victoria Monroe.
The large deer population has also become a safety hazard. The county’s website claims that an average of 4,000 to 5,000 deer-vehicle collisions occur each year. In August, a motorcyclist died after hitting a deer.
County administrators have recently been attempting to combat the problem through various methods, even allowing police SWAT teams to practice their sharpshooting on deer in county parks. Last year, 815 deer were harvested. It is important to note that there have been no human fatalities since the program’s implementation.
Though these efforts are designed to preserve the county’s ecological balance, animal rights groups have protested the culling programs, including one demonstration in 2009 that led officials to close Colvin Run Park during a hunt due to safety concerns.
Last year, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent out an email begging for support for “deer suffer[ing] in agony” and “abandoned fawns” who starve after their “parents are wounded or killed.”
This program is not an issue of illegal poaching or systematic animal abuse; it is hunting sanctioned and encouraged by scientists in response to a clear overpopulation problem that is harming humans and deer alike. Groups like PETA seem to misunderstand the problem—being hit by a car and left to die on a road or slowly starving to death because of overgrazing are more painful way for a deer to die than being killed by a government-licensed hunter.
While there are certainly legitimate causes for animal rights protests, the deer culling program should not be one of them. PETA’s rote objection to this necessary program threatens its ability to rally broad outrage against truly unethical treatment of animals. Animal rights activists should recognize that these programs are necessary and beneficial for all inhabitants of Fairfax County, whether deer or human.
