83 Deer Harvested In Basking Ridge During 2023-24 Hunting Season

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — The 2023-24 hunting season has come to a close in Basking Ridge.

The Township Committee passed a resolution at its Tuesday night meeting approving the Township's Deer Management Advisory Committee's report of the results of the hunting season, which ran from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024.

The report revealed that 83 deer were killed during the 2023-24 hunting season and 109 during the 2022-23 hunting season in the township.

To conduct this annual harvest program the Township Committee authorizes two private hunting groups — Whitetail Solution (WS) and Bernards Township Protective Association (BTPA) — to hunt on 41 tracts owned by Bernards Township, and county officials did the same for three tracts owned by Somerset County.

WS uses archery only and BTPA uses both archery and firearms. The hunting group members are all certified (every two years) by licensed firearms and archery instructors/testers and the hunting program is supervised by a member of the Bernards Township Police Department.

From the deer harvested, eight were donated to the Lyons Veterans Administration Community Hope and other charitable organizations that service veterans at a unit butchering cost of $75.

Additionally, 14 deer were donated by hunters to other Veterans organizations. With an average venison yield estimated to be 30-35 pounds per deer, the contribution of venison by the Township was around 1,260 pounds.

Overall the committee reported that "road kills" on township roadways(not including I-78 and I-287) for the Deer Season Year 2023-24 was 47.

"This is 83.7 percent below the count of 289 for the base year 2001," according to the report.

The deer management committee is proposing to submit a new Community Based Deer Management Plan for the coming year where they will again request an extended season from mid-February to the end of March 2025.

"We believe our deer program continues to make progress in reducing the deer population and the harmful impacts of deer – we are one of only four successful programs in NJ," according to the committee.

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