Sharpshooters hunt deer in park around Camp David

[brendan120678]

By DAVID DISHNEAU
The Associated Press
Monday, February 1, 2010; 4:09 PM

HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- Government sharpshooters are taking aim at hundreds of white-tailed deer in the national park surrounding the Camp David presidential retreat in western Maryland.

...

Park officials say the operation is intended to cull an outsize herd that has devoured so many saplings and low-hanging tree branches that the health of both the forest and the deer have suffered.

...

The shooting will be done by three U.S. Agriculture Department sharpshooters, because public hunting is banned in the park. Denniston said he expects them to kill 200 to 300 deer this year.

...

The park service said it will donate the meat to the Baltimore-based Maryland Food Bank, which expressed gratitude for the gift.

Excerpt: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102468.html
------------------------------------------------------
Getting paid to hunt deer. Sounds like fun!

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Yellow or white?

:popcorn:

--d!

[slackmaster]

2. Yummy!

K&R

:kick:

[JBoy]

3. If Cheney had shot more deer and less faces, they wouldn't have this problem now.

[vadawg]

4. hell yes, and the meat is used which is better than being left on the road after a collision

i hate to shoot and waste meat on the highway...

[WhiteTara]

13. not to mention the secondary kills from

the lead bullets.

[vadawg]

14. not sure what you are talking about, havent seen many of the neighbourhood hunts end with secondary

kills, or is this just something that you think happens all the time..

[WhiteTara]

23. well, the lead poisons the meat

and when eagles, or other birds eat the carcass, they are poisoned by the lead in the meat.

[michreject]

5. They did that here in Michigan a few years back

Some people started crying and wailing to stop the hunt. There was a massive mini van crowd protest. The Government did the right thing. They went ahead with the hunt.

[Tim01]

6. This is just what happens when we remove the predators.

People don't like their children being dragged out of the yard and eaten, so we get rid of the mountain lions and wolves. City people don't like shooting so they ban the human predators. And then deer overpopulate, eat everything in sight, crash through store windows, and badly damage lots and lots and lots of cars.

[SPedigrees]

7. That's it in a nutshell. But you left out a core reason

which is the overpopulation of humans and corresponding shrinking of the natural habitat for deer and predators alike.

[Tim01]

12. Yes and no.

It's true that humans are taking more and more of the natural habitat.

But it is also true that if predators were still hunting in those smaller habitats there wouldn't be a deer over population problem.

And yes, I do understand that the real bottom line is that humans are putting up a bazzion houses in places that used to be hard wood forests.

[vadawg]

8. rofl, i love the vision of the kids being dragged out of the yard, that made me lol

i used to live in a DC suburb that was overrun with deer, lots of collisions and people getting upset at the very thought of hunting, now i live in the sticks, no where near as many deer collisions and plenty of venison..

[Tim01]

18. Not really following you. Mountain lions will eat children. nt

[vadawg]

20. yup i know that, just the vision of it happening in my old DC suburb Neighbourhood made me laugh

not sure if the mountain lion would be able to negotiate the jungle gyms and electric cars...

[Tim01]

21. *snicker* Ok, I get it.

I've spent a fair amount of time in D.C. suburbs.


Incidentally, I know a guy in florida who is kind of obsessed with carrying a handgun that will kill alligators, after one tried to grab his son in his back yard.*shudders*
I'd be kind of obsessed, too.

[madrchsod]

9. around here we let the bow hunters cull the herds

[SteveM]

10. Same thing was done in Princeton, N.J.'s parks when deer overpopulated...

In that case, a team of sharpshooters was paid around $90,000 to cull the deer, using rifles with silencers, bait and tower blinds. As the deer were shot (in accordance with a biologist's shopping list of sex and age), they were immediately removed from the park, field-dressed, skinned and butchered off-site, and delivered to local food pantries. Next morning, joggers didn't even know what had happened. But over 60 deer were killed.

For most urban dwellers if it's out of sight, it's out of mind.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Years ago the state did that in a large park near me in NJ...

the place had become so overrun with deer that it was pretty much denuded of foliage up to about six feet from the ground. All the other woodland critters starved or took off with lizards, rabbits, ground squirrels and whatever having no food left for them, the red tailed hawks having no lizards or mice to hunt...

After months of wrangling with the locals about how to solve the problem, at sunrise one morning a group of sharpshooters came in and took care of the problem. By the time anyone noticed, the deed had been done.

A public hunt was out of the question, with the thought of kids in the park, 30-30 rounds zipping through storefronts and living rooms...

[vadawg]

16. in lots of locales its the local LEO who do the hunt, the SWAT guys go out one night

bag shit lots of deer and no one even knows its happened...

[arcadian]

15. That's funny, they won't even mention the Parks name for "security" reasons.

It's Catoctin Mountain Park by the way.

[arcadian]

17. My bad, they did actually mention it in the linked article

a lot times they won't though, keeps away the gawkers.

[LanternWaste]

19. The base and the common...

The base, common, looking-for-a-response reply was quick on this one...

[dipsydoodle]

22. Oh dear,

Oh dear, Oh dear..........................