Oh Deer? Feds Have Killed Almost 1,000 in Valley Forge Park

According to the National Park Service, via the Philadelphia Inquirer, federal sharpshooters brought in to cut the deer population of Valley Forge National Park in an effort to preserve indigenous flora have done so to lethal effect.

Since the inception of the four-year program in late 2010, the Feds have killed almost 1,000 deer. As of March, the herd had been reduced to 374—less than a third of its peak of 1,277 before the shooting began.

Culls, in which deer are drawn into a controlled area and shot, have become increasingly common in recent years as parks have grappled with rising deer populations.

While animal rights activists have fervently but unsuccessfully opposed Valley Forge’s four-year culling plan, rhetorically and in the courts, the park service maintains that the deer level was simply unsustainable.

According to the Inquirer, the herd had jumped eightfold in 25 years, and this population boom had crowded out plants and other wildlife.

For the time being at least, the culling will continue. The current deer density, by the reckoning of the park service, is 71 per square mile—down from 241 in 2009—but the target density is as low as 31.