It’s come to this. Monocacy in Frederick, Md., is one of three national battlefields so overrun with white-tailed deer — apparently, they’re interfering with crops and ruining the habitat for other wildlife — that the National Park Service has proposed sending sharpshooters to keep the population down.
The article at the CBS Baltimore website also mentions fencing in crops and woodlots as well as the use of “nonsurgical reproductive control methods,” a concept that really tries my imagination, let me tell you.
But if we rely on snipers, won’t we be stuck doing that indefinitely? I vote for the really-big-fence idea.
Utilizing snipers is actually a much more humane way of managing the deer population. The land can’t support the size of the herd and the deer will ultimately be less healthy due to starvation and disease. Most sniper programs typically donate all the venison to a local food bank or shelter as well. You end up with healthier land and a healthier deer population.