BY IAN YARETT

In print | Published May 1, 2008 — Updated December 03, 2008 23:06

The college announced yesterday that it has accepted a plan to use sharpshooters to control the overabundance of deer in the Crum Woods through an organized deer cull. The plan had been previously recommended by the Crum Woods Stewardship Committee, whose mission is “to create a protection, restoration, and stewardship plan for Crum Woods,” according to its Web site. The first cull may occur as soon as next winter break, and will take place during the night.

After examination of recommendations made by a consultant, Bryon Shissler, of Natural Resource Consultants, Inc., the Crum Stewardship Committee made a recommendation last year that deer overpopulation in the Crum be addressed by using sharpshooters to cull the population. This recommendation was then presented to the Board of Managers, and ultimately, the President’s staff made the decision to approve the plan and proceed.

Of the various options researched for controlling the deer population, Associate Professor of Biology and Crum Woods Stewardship Committee Co-Chair José Luis Machado said that the committee felt that the proposal to cull deer by sharpshooter had the “highest gain, was least problematic, and has been demonstrated to be most effective.”

“We felt this was likely to have the desired effect over time and be relatively humane,” Vice President Maurice Eldridge ’61 said of the plan. “We made sure that we had input from the voices in the community that deserved that opportunity,” Eldridge said, citing students, faculty, staff, borough residents, and other community members.

According to Eldridge, it is required that the meat be harvested for charitable purposes after the cull. “Once the municipalities … apply for a deer removal permit from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, one of the things that come with that permission is that the meat gets into the food chain in a charitable way,” Eldridge said.

According to Associate Vice President for Facilities and Services Stu Hain, the next step is for the college to ask the Swarthmore borough and Nether Province to modify their ordinances, which currently make it illegal for anyone other than a police officer to discharge a firearm.

“From everything we have heard, it’s expected to pass,” Hain said of the amendment. “This will be another opportunity for comments — [the amendment process] will be very public, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

Assuming the ordinances are successfully amended, the college will ask the two municipalities to apply to the Pennsylvania Game Commission for a deer removal permit. “We can’t apply as a private institution — this will be another public process,” Hain said. “The Swarthmore Borough Council will vote to make the decision — votes will be public and recorded.”

According to Eldridge, the municipalities will likely consider the proposal at their May and June meetings.

Prior to approving the plan for management of the deer population, the college sought feedback from community members on multiple occasions, through several public forums. “We have had opportunities for students, faculty, and other community members to hear the plan and give feedback,” Hain said.

According to Eldridge, feedback has been minimal so far. “You can’t second guess it though — there may be people who will raise their voices [when the municipalities consider modifying their ordinances].” Other communities that have proceeded with plans to cull deer, such as Wissahickon Valley and Fairmont Park, faced more objections than Swarthmore has up to this point.

“So far, we have received 99 percent support — I have not received a single communication from a community member negatively affected by this decision,” Machado said.

“That’s nice for us to see — it gives a sense of us as a community working toward this decision.” “I feel very excited — this is an example of how consensus works. We have been working on this for [many] years, focusing on educating ourselves as well as faculty, staff and students with the best information.”

Machado explained that the goal of population control in the Crum Woods is put in place a plan that will help preserve the forest and its wildlife in the long term. “This is a mechanism for us to help the woods maintain themselves over time — beyond our lifetimes even — for future generations of Swatties.”

“This project is important — we want to do it the right way and hire the right people,” Machado said. Three firms will be hired as part of the population control plan: one to conduct the sharpshooting, one to ensure compliance of the sharpshooters with various rules and regulations governing the cull and a third to monitor for changes in the woods, including changes in vegetation and tick population over time, before and after deer population control begins.

Machado emphasized that this management project will help sustain the Crum Woods while providing an opportunity to learn, in keeping with the college’s mission to educate. “We’re learning as we’re doing this — it’s a wonderful opportunity for us to learn more about the effects on wildlife in fragmented forests.”

According to Machado, fragmentation and its effects on wildlife are not well studied. Thus, measurements and data can be taken throughout the deer population control process to maximize the opportunity for learning as a result of the project.

The plan to control the deer population in the Crum, according to Machado, is a long term plan, and periodic deer culls will continue for an unknown length of time due to many complicating factors, including that deer will continue to die and reproduce naturally over the course of the Crum management project.

Similarly, Machado explained that it is impossible to determine the exact number of deer that will be removed. Rather, sharpshooters will set up bait stations in certain areas throughout the Crum each year, allow deer to become accustomed to the presence of the bait, and then choose a time at which to kill all of the deer present at a specific bait location at once.

Machado emphasized that sharpshooters will only choose to remove deer at a specific time and location if the conditions are right, as it is essential that no deer escape at these times. “These are organisms for which survival is at the center of their livelihood, he said. If they survive at that moment [when deer around them are being shot], they will become skiddish.”

“We want to make sure that there is transparency in this process,” Machado said. “We want to ensure that if adjustments [to the plan] need to be made, they will be made with information. Population control is very case specific — what works in one case does not necessarily work in another, so we want to be able to adjust.”

According to Machado, the ultimate goal is to reduce the deer population to a self-sustainable level. When killing deer, sharpshooters must ensure they are a successful predator, he said. Deer mimic behavior and can learn from each other to avoid sharpshooters, which would make the job much harder.

According to Hain, the Swarthmore and/or Nether Province police departments will provide assistance when the sharpshooting actually occurs in order to ensure that the procedure is carried out safely, without endangering anyone. In addition to carrying out the sharpshooting at night and during the winter at a time when students are not on campus, many other precautions will be taken in keeping with rules and regulations developed by the college’s consulting firm, Natural Resource Consulting, Inc. For example, shots will never be fired downhill, so that shots are likely to hit a hill if they miss. Hain said that there are many other rules, and emphasized that this has been done successfully in other places.

“One hundred years from now [the community] will gain benefits from our actions today — a lot will change around Swarthmore, but this piece of forest will stay here. This is only the first step — later there will be talk of other projects such as removing invasive species and reforestation,” Machado said.

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