Guest blogger Betty Madden writes:
Despite a pending court challenge, the National Park Service announced its intention October 4 to proceed with installing snipers in Valley Forge National Historical Park starting in November. By doing so Park Managers ignore their mandate under NPS’ Organic Act to preserve wildlife within it.
According to the law human intervention in wildlife management is limited to those rare circumstances when wild species interfere with human use of a park. Only in those cases when wildlife attacks visitors like the bears in Yellowstone can the Secretary of the Interior destroy wildlife. There is no evidence the deer at Valley Forge are impacting public use of the park. In fact, according to VFNHP’s own survey, the deer are an attraction to many visitors.
An analysis of the document the Park prepared to justify running the risk of deer vehicle collisions reveals other factors which don’t add up. Park Managers claim the deer are eating too much but according to the Final Deer Management Plan/EIS the Park supports over 1300 species of plants and animals. How can the Park keep this many species if deer are gobbling up everything? Furthermore, according to an inventory the Park conducted in 2007 of meadows, 337 plant species dominated by native grasses (which deer prefer) were identified. The large proportion of these grasses calls into question whether the Park deer are adversely impacting such habitat as the Park claims.
If deer browsing on young trees is a problem there are safe ways to protect saplings with plantra tubes, used all over Chester County. These tubes cost a million times less than the two-three million dollars the Park’s budgeted to implement this Plan. Wasting tax payer money is unconscionable when these funds are needed for job creation programs and saving homes from foreclosure, or staving off hunger in U.S. Congressional District 1 which consists of parts of North, West, South Philadelphia and Chester. According to “A Portrait of Hunger” featured in the Inquirer on October 10, 2010, it is the second poorest district in the U.S.A.; the Bronx is first. Forty percent of the children in the District go to bed and to school hungry. They grow up intellectually challenged due to lack of nutrition. The millions budgeted to restore native vegetation at Valley Forge should be reappropriated to save these children from failure.
Worst of all Park Managers themselves admit this Plan could be a waste of millions. They are not sure if this dangerous plan which also involves the wholesale slaughter of tame deer will even regenerate the forest. Other factors could be the cause of the problem such as by trees growing too close together which reduces sunlight from reaching the forest floor. Inadequate rainfall could also be among other factors affecting the absence of seedlings. NPS claims it might modify its plan as new information is collected. The only problem is they only plan to reevaluate after 10 years when 80% of the deer have been killed and millions of dollars spent.
Meanwhile bullets from high powered rifles as close as 300 feet from roads will continue to fly from November through March every year, perhaps for as many as 15 years, the life of the Plan. Ask anyone who has been struck by a bullet fired from miles away if this is safe. Look up Erie Insurance Company and Penndot for information about deer vehicle collision and you will find the worst time to drive is when hunters are shooting at deer. Click on the American Lyme Disease Foundation link on our website and see that field mice and birds, not deer, are the real culprits in spreading Lyme Disease. In fact, by planting more bushes the Park acknowledges they are creating a habitat for field mice and consequently more Lyme Disease! I doubt the neighbors of the Park know that Michele Batcheller, the Park’s wildlife biologist, warned at the Public Hearing in January 2009 that when the sharpshooting begins deer will run out of the Park and take up residence in their backyards.
None of these consequences are what anyone has bargained for. Before it’s too late contact your congressman and insist this dangerous and expensive experiment which risks human life and injury be stopped. Mention the 260,000 children in Philadelphia who don’t have enough to eat, and ask them if they’ll help reprioritize federal dollars by putting people first. Perhaps sanity will prevail and this Plan will be buried before it’s too late.
Betty Madden
www.keepvalleyforgesafe.org
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