Three years ago, Valley Forge Historical Park was in the throes of the start of culling their deer population. At the time, it was said there were over 1200 deer using this historical landmark as their home.
The Park said it needed to take action because the deer population had prevented the ability of native forests to grow and mature. Valley Forge Historical Park said the deer didn’t allow the the forest understory (diverse herbaceous plant layer, ferns, wildflowers, and shrubs) to exist. The understory is important for other animals to survive and caused the forest to be in trouble. There was one culprit- the white-tailed deer.
In the end after animal rights groups fought this decision, a judge agreed with the historical site to use sharpshooters to kill 80% of the deer population over the course of four years to create forest regeneration.
I’m not interested to agree or disagree with the decision. The killing spree started and continues.
I have visited Valley Forge numerous times over the last five years. As my husband and I would drive through this five acre historical landmark, we enjoyed seeing these beautiful creatures as they graciously moved about in the park.
They were calm and showed no fear of humans. The historical tourist attraction enabled these deer who normally shunned people to stay out in the open for all to see. I personally felt it was a great experience for children as well as adults to see wild animals up close.
We visited the park this past weekend. I love history and never tire of learning the stories of the Revolutionary War. So much history in Pennsylvania and so much of it is in my backyard. We hadn’t been to the park since the cull started.
Attentively listening to an audio tour of Valley Forge, it took me over an hour to realize we hadn’t seen one deer the entire time. It finally sunk in about the cull. Seeing the deer was as enjoyable as learning about President George Washington and his Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War winter encampment (1777-1778).
After 1 1/2 hrs, we spotted a lone deer eating in the woods. One deer. We were in areas never visited by us and still no deer.
According to the Park’s website, the deer population was 241 deer per square mile (1277 deer in the entire park) and they wanted these numbers reduced to 31-35 deer per square mile (165-185 deer in the entire park). We drove for miles and we only saw that one deer. Sharpshooters consisted mainly of military veterans have killed over half of the population according to reports.
If they have killed over half of the deer and still want the number of deer reduced, where are the deer? While I understand the philosophy of killing the agent responsible for ruining the forest and also being a carrier of the deer tick, why did we see only one deer while traveling the entire park? The meat was donated to the Central PA food bank with over 3,000 lbs. donated locally in Chester County.
Seeing one deer was quite disappointing. Imagining setting up a spot where the deer were lured, shot and killed with over 600 deer killed the first time was mind-boggling. All those deer we used to see are gone.
The animal rights group, Friends of Animals, tried in vain to stop the killing but were unsuccessful.
“Parks like this are actually a place where you should see nature,” Matt McLaughlin, director of the Pennsylvania chapter of Friends of Animals “This is about animals trying to feed themselves. They aren’t trying to be destructive, they’re just trying to live.”
At least one is.
That’s horrible! I never heard of anyone doing this. Killing over 1000 deer. Can you imagine when the deer heard the gunshots and saw all of the other deer falling to the ground and dying. Horrible.
Deer were ruining the park and the only way is to start over. They had no choice but to kill them. I know they’re beautiful creatures but creatures who can do alot of destruction. It was the right thing to do. I’m sure many will disagree with me. I’m speaking facts.
Deer are very destructive and destroy alot of shrubs, as you said. The park has been overrun for many years by the deer. I agreed about their plan to kill the deer and give the meat to a food bank. It served a good purpose.
I don’t believe in killing almost all of the deer. Having that many deer leads to starvation for the deer. I believe they went overboard if you don’t see any deer. That isn’t warranted. Somewhere in the middle is the right answer.
There’s deer management and then there’s killing off all the deer. The Park was still beautiful as ever while the deer were alive. I never understood why they had to kill so many of them. Breaks my heart.
Why did they have to go and do that?
It’s sad to know the deer aren’t there anymore. They didn’t have to kill almost every last one.
Couldn’t anyone think of other ideas to get rid of the deer? You mean to tell me there was nothing else that could’ve been done to get rid of them. Seems suspicious to kill that many deer. I’ve only been there a couple of times and saw the deer. I liked seeing them. I know they kill all kinds of plants and I wouldn’t like it if they did that to my property but I thought there were ways to get rid of them. I certainly couldn’t shoot any deer on my property. City limits and I wouldn’t anyway. Sad. 🙁
I don’t think they had a choice HOWEVER killing the majority of the deer was “overkill” as you say. That wasn’t necessary. There’s doing the right thing and another thing to kill everything in sight! WRONG.
The deer population was only to get larger and destroy more of the land. They also had done into neighboring areas ruining residents’ plants and shrubs. They were wrecking everything. What other solution could there be?
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I respectfully disagree with what you wrote. Deer were taking over Valley Forge. The tactics used to get rid of them were the right ones. Regards
Wow, wipe out an entire herd of deer. Sad.
Totally unnecessary to kill off that many deer!
My wife wears the pants in our relationship and was for the killing so am I.
Ultimately, the cull was the right decision.
The fact of the matter is that there were far more deer living in the park than the environment could support: They would eat practically everything they could reach, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
If you were to compare the pre-cull deer population of Valley Forge Park to deer in areas with manageable deer populations, you’d find that the VFP deer were significantly smaller.
Similarly, if you were to compare the forested areas of pre-cull VFP to forested areas with manageable deer populations, you’d find that the former was considerably barer compared with the latter.
Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that, in nature, there are predators (e.g. wolves) that exist to manage the populations of animals like deer. Since we, as a society, have removed those predators from society, the task of managing the deer population falls to us. If we shirk that responsibility, the deer will proliferate beyond the capacity of the environment, and the result will be starvation for the deer, and destruction of the ecosystem.
As an aside, had you considered that the reason why deer were such a common sight in the park prior to the cull was not because of a lack of timidity, but because of a desperation for food? In other words, had it occurred to you that the deer were forced into contact with people (when they’d rather avoid it) because they were so desperate to eat?
🙁