There are several bills currently pending before the New Jersey Legislature that pose a clear and present danger to the State’s wildlife resources.
The first Bill, of which, there are presently two (2) versions (A2642 and A2852), would substantially alter the makeup of the New Jersey Fish and Game Council- the group which
has the primary responsibility for overseeing, in cooperation with scientists from the state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, the overall management and well being of the state’s wildlife populations. Created originally in
1870 as the Board of Fish and Game Commissioners, the originally 9, and now 11 member Council has had an enviable 134 year record as the chief steward of the state’s wildlife resources. Ninety (90) years ago, they, and
New Jersey’s licensed hunters, trappers and fishermen championed the establishment of the state’s first fund (derived solely from hunting and fishing license revenues) to acquire “… areas of land, water, or land and water for
uses as public hunting and fishing grounds and game refuges” (See L. 1914, c. 152, L. 1931, c.55, L. 1932) – a pioneering initiative to which hundreds of species of wildlife, huntable or not, owe their very survival and existence.
Once, or nearly, extirpated species, such as the white-tailed deer, the wild turkey, and most recently, the black bear, now a common sight, are here because of the dedication and foresight of Fish and Game Council, plus the
support of the state’s sportsmen and women, and the able guidance of the Division of Fish and Wildlife scientists.
Now, a few special interest animal rights groups, some of whom may have affiliates whose long term goal is to stop the killing of all animals, for any purpose, anywhere and anytime, have begun a campaign to legislatively hijack
the Fish and Game Council’s authority. Their intent is to create an anti-hunting majority on the Board. If successful, they further intend to substitute their own brand of wildlife management, consisting of myths, half-truths,
outright lies, hysteria and pseudoscience, for the Council’s indisputably successful management strategies.
A second related bill (A 2634), also making it way through the legislative process, would prohibit black bear hunting for 5 years, and require further study of an animal that has already been studied to death in New Jersey.

That these animal rights groups have found support for these bills, both from some legislators and from some New Jersey residents, speaks volumes about the “ecological illiteracy” so prevalent in this state and
the nation generally.
Residents who don’t even know where their drinking water comes from or where their sewage goes, have suddenly become overnight wildlife management experts, accepting at face value the cleverly crafted animal rights
propaganda that bears little resemblance or relevance to the real world environment. Those that don’t know the difference between myopathy and philopatry are suddenly engaged in zealous letter writing campaigns,
expounding upon the virtues of such things as immunocontraception - a purportedly benign, quick-fix scheme, for controlling the population of the state’s second largest mammal, the white-tailed deer. For the state’s largest
mammal, the black bear, these animal activists and their unwitting recruits propose an even crueler population control method – sterilization through testicular atrophy. The sole purpose of these two latter population control
methods is of course to eliminate hunting as a method of population control, not only for these two species, but eventually for all currently huntable wildlife populations, here and everywhere – a potentially dangerous prospect indeed,
both for humans and wildlife.

The amount of time, energy and money spent by these animal rights groups vilifying hunters and hunting is considerable. This sometimes borderline, maniacal fixation on hunters and hunting is tragic, because it diverts public
attention to treating the symptoms (i.e. overpopulation) rather than fixing the causes (insufficient and unsuitable habitat). Those causes have as their origin the state’s local land use planning practices, where wildlife concerns,
particularly habitat protection and preservation, have yet to be adequately recognized much less addressed. Reforming the Fish and Game Council and restructuring its authority and its independency, is not in the best interests
of the state’s wildlife. There should be no doubt that the proposed Bills/legislation embody the hatred, expressed by animal rights activists towards hunters and hunting. Because of the vindictive nature of the proposed legislation,
extreme care must be taken by its legislative sponsors to assure that they have sufficient justification and thorough documentation that the Fish and Game Council, has, for the last 134 years, clearly, and consistently abandoned,
neglected and completely abdicated its responsibilities as stewards of our wildlife – a standard of proof that will be hard to meet given the Council’s extremely long record of successes. Without such proof, this proposed legislation
should not be allowed to see the light of day.

IN DEFENSE OF HUNTING

First, let me state in the strongest terms possible, that it is okay to hunt. Not one hunter, young or old, man or woman, should have the slightest compunction that hunting of wildlife is not morally or philosophically okay. It is the only
method of culling and managing wildlife that is in closest comport ecologically, with the real world environment – an environment, where all species, except humans, eat each other, all day long, every day, year after year, through an
endless array of food chains comprised of producers and consumers. In their ecological schema, there are no plans for college attendance, no worry about saving for retirement, no worry about taxes, and certainly no work schedules.
Their maxim is simple but harsh, “eat, survive, and live to eat another day.”
Animal rights groups continue to demonize and harangue hunters and hunting. They particularly blame both as the prime cause of the state’s current overpopulation of white-tailed deer. To the contrary, it was the unintended curtailment
of hunting, not because of it, fostered by a whopping increase in the state’s human population (some 1.2 million increase from 1972 to 2002) that was the real culprit. This human expansion resulted in the loss of huge areas of farmland
and forested open spaces. By 1972, for example, Somerset County had already lost 39 percent of its former deer habitat to housing developments and industrial expansion. In that same year the state’s deer population, some 75,000
animals, was approaching the landscape’s carrying capacity in many parts of the state. Thanks to the fecundity and adaptability of these particular animals, they prospered and proliferated in these newly built landscapes. Unfortunately,
those sprawling landscapes of human habitation would, for the next 30 years, substantially and incrementally thwart the regulated hunting and harvest of the state’s deer herd.
No, regulated hunting is not and never has been the culprit. The real culprits have been, and continue to be, the state’s growing human population and its antiquated land use planning practices, primarily at the municipal level.
When was the last time your local planning board made specific provisions in their Master Plan and resulting zoning ordinances for wildlife habitat conservation plans to accompany every new development. I’m not talking about
those hit and miss, haphazard land donations by developers of unconnected, isolated and mostly undevelopable remnants of land, left over after all developable acreage has been extracted. I’m talking about developing a hard
core system of interconnected tracts and greenways where wildlife, such as deer, can comfortably travel, rest, eat, breed and yes, be safely culled by hunting, when their population approaches or exceeds the landscape’s carrying capacity.

Secondary claims by animal rights activists, that hunting is an extremely dangerous outdoor activity, belies the true facts about hunting safety. The National Safety Council’s statistics show that hunting results in about 7.06 injuries
per 100,000 participants. This figure pales in comparison to the 3,313 injuries per 100,000 participants for football; the 1,391 for baseball; 622 for volleyball; 194 for swimming; 185 for golf and 57 for bowling. For further
comparison, in the year 2000 there were 29, 500 fatalities and 7,100,000 disabling injuries in the home alone, and auto accidents that same year added another 43,500 fatalities. That is real carnage.
Despite what these anti-hunting groups may profess, there is one point on which they and hunters seem to agree. Hunters, much like their antagonists, also find the nation’s current factory farming practices, with its excessive use
of antibiotics, overcrowded and cramped facilities, severe waste disposal problems and questionable slaughtering practices repugnant. It is one of the very reasons why hunting families prefer to obtain some of their food from animals
who, until their last moment of life, live free of steel bars, cages and coops – an alternative lifestyle currently being espoused by several humane groups for the 9 billion animals factory farmed and slaughtered each year to keep the
nation’s populace well fed. But then again, some of the fanatical brethren of these humane groups want no animals whatever slaughtered for the dinner table. In their long range plan, soybean and alfalfa sprout patties will be the nation’s table fare.

Hunting, rather than being castigated, should be encouraged, to the extent even, of establishing a pro-hunting curriculum in our schools. How else will our citizens, young and old, understand, that behind those neatly wrapped steaks,
chops and hamburgers in the local supermarket, there is an ecological chain of life to which they have previously not been witness or participant.

If our state legislators are really serious about assisting in the long term protection of the state’s wildlife, they would immediately drop the pending bills A2642, A2852 and A2639, and instead enact legislation to revise the
Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) particularly N.J.S.A. 40;55D-28 as follows: 1) change the present language from, “The planning board may prepare…a master plan…” to “The planning board shall prepare… a master plan…”; 2)
Incorporate new language at 40:55D-28 (B) (2) requiring not only the mandatory inclusion of B(1) Objectives and B(2) Land Use Element but also B(8) Conservation Plan Element as well; 3) Under 40: 55D–28 B(1), B(2) and B(8)
require the inclusion of a municipality wide habitat conservation plan (HCP); and lastly, 4) under 40:55-65 add language requiring local zoning ordinances to make site specific Habitat Conservation Plans a mandatory submission for
all major subdivisions and site plans. These changes would do more for the welfare of New Jersey’s wildlife than any anti-hunting legislation ever could.

MYTHS AND REALITIES OF IMMUNOCONTRACEPTION

That the term immunocontraception has found its way into the vocabulary of New Jerseyans so quickly, is a tribute to the effectiveness of the marketing strategies of relatively small number of well financed animal rights groups.
Whether immunocontraception can actually become the “quick fix” deer population control scheme its’ marketers proclaim it to be, is quite another story. To a populace with a propensity to seek “magic pill” solutions rather
than face difficult problems head on, immunocontraception is admittedly attractive. A simple injection, or two, (depending on the vaccine used) into each female animal and your problem is solved, or so its’ proponents claim.
In the animal rights world perhaps, but not here on planet Earth, the real world. That simplistic view of immunocontraception, while comforting to its’ proponents, belies the extreme difficulties of its’ application to large scale,
free roaming populations of wildlife such as the white-tailed deer.
It should come as no surprise that many of immunocontraception’s advocates, particularly the phalanx of writers of letters to the editor, often know the least about how immunocontracetion really works. The fact that it doesn’t
involve hunting is justification enough. That myopic viewpoint spells real danger for the state’s wildlife.

So how does the immunocontraception process work? All mammalian eggs (called oocytes) are surrounded by an extracellular (outside) coating called zona pellucida or ZP for short. The ZP is the site of the initial interaction
between the male sperm and the female egg. Mammalian spermatozoa are unable to fertilize the egg upon ejaculation. To gain fertilizing ability, the sperm must undergo a process called “capacitation”, which enables a single
sperm to penetrate the ZP coating and thus fertilize the egg. The ZP coating is involved in 3 essential events in the fertilization process. These include species specific sperm recognition and binding; stimulation of the sperm
acrosome reaction; and the egg induced block to polyspermy (i.e. prevention of more than one sperm from entering the egg for fertilization). Of theses three essential events, immunocontraception relies upon producing an
interference with the sperm binding function. This is accomplished by injecting the female, in this case, the doe deer, with a potent antigen vaccine cocktail to stimulate the female’s immune system to produce antibodies that
bind themselves to the ZP on her egg(s) thus preventing the sperm from accomplishing binding. The vaccine is comprised of ZP extracted from pig ovaries (hence the name porcine zona pellucida or PZP) obtained from
slaughterhouses and a immunologic enhancing agent called an adjuvant. A commonly used adjuvant is Freund’s Complete Adjuvant, which is itself a mixture of mineral oil, a surfactant (soap), and mycobacteria – often M. tuberculosis
(the human form of tuberculosis) or M. butryicum. It is the adjuvant that serves many functions in the immunocontraception process. First, because a sustained level of antigen is needed, the adjuvant, once injected, into the deer’s flesh,
becomes a depot of antigen. Secondly, the adjuvant serves as a vehicle to help deliver the antigen to the animal’s spleen or lymph nodes (the body’s protective system), thereby stimulating the generation of plasma cells to produce
the required antibodies. Lastly, the irritating presence of the bacteria helps to further activate and prolong the deer’s immune response.

Proponents would have the public believe that immunocontraception is completely painless and harmless, but previous studies demonstrate otherwise. The injection itself (usually accomplished by a fired dart) will cause an inflammatory
response that may be severe and painful. Longer duration effects, due to the nature of the vaccine itself, have included tissue trauma, abscesses and ulcerating tissue necrosis at the site of the injection. Some side effects, with unknown
long term consequences have been observed in some of the controlled immunocontraception studies on white-tailed deer and other species. They include, prolonged periods of estrus (up to 7 months longer), and an extended, often
exhaustive, breeding season for the males. Some species have shown changes in ovarian morphology and function, which could lead to irreversible fertility.

While PZP inoculations of white-tailed deer, on a small scale, under very controlled conditions have had some success in the short term, the successful application to a free-ranging, large population of white-tailed deer is highly unlikely
for all of the following reasons:
1) Even with the development of a single dose vaccine, field inoculators will still have to deal with the problem of identification of individual animals (to avoid wasteful double dosing), because it would be unlikely that they would be able
to stalk and dart several hundred or several thousand, free roaming animals in a single day, even under the most favorable conditions. When one contemplates the potential inoculation of 45,000 to 60,000 female deer in the state, the
likelihood of immunocontraception being successfully applied on a statewide basis not only seems impossible but is in fact impossible. At a cost of around $1000 per animal the costs alone are staggering.
2) The inoculation of an entire population, assuming it could be done, does nothing to immediately correct societal (deer/auto crashes, crop damage) or ecological (over browsing, starvation, crop damage) consequences of overpopulation.
Rather, it is a status quo approach.
3) Assuming that the immunocontraception approach will be taken to its logical conclusion, that all female deer (or bears) would be continuously immunized for years, ultimately there would eventually be a catastrophic population collapse
as deer in the same age group die of old age.
4) Concern is also being expressed that the use of immunocontraception could create genetic changes in the target population, that would influence disease resistance. In other words, by administering a vaccine that prevents deer with
stronger immune systems from breeding, it is feared that diseased, immuncompromised deer will breed at the expense of healthier deer, thus passing on greater susceptibility of disease to the next generation. In addition there is further
concern that deer whose immune systems are preoccupied with sustaining antibodies to prevent conception might be in peril when exposed to other infectious agents.

The conclusions by recognized expert scientists who have actually field applied immunocontraception on various size white-tailed deer populations are particularly salient. Howard J. Kilpatrick, with the Connecticut DEP had this to
say in his August, 2002 report entitled, “Managing Urban Deer In Connecticut”; “A 3 year study, 1997-1999, evaluating the effectiveness of birth control (immunocontraception) was conducted by the Humane Society of the Untied Sates
in cooperation with the Connecticut Wildlife Division and the University of New Hampshire. The study conducted on a deer herd in Groton, Connecticut demonstrated that, even with good access to a relatively small, isolated deer population
(about 30 females) an adequate number of female deer could not be successfully treated to limit population growth.”
H. Brian Underwood, another leading researcher on immunocontraception with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Wildlife Research Center, reached similar conclusions in his 4 year study (1997-2000) of immunocontraception on a deer
herd in Irondequoit, New York (a suburb of Rochester), in which the Humane Society of the United States was also involved in the design. His conclusions, embodied in a 2001 report entitled, “Contraception and Deer”, reinforces
what Kilpatrick and other experts continue to conclude, “… those communities considering this (immunocontraception) technique should be wary of attempting to manage deer on large geographic scales or attempting to treat large numbers of females.” Irondequoit is 17 square miles in size and supports a deer population of around 40 per square mile or roughly 680 deer.

Immunocontraception is a terribly dangerous road to go down. Will this become our approach to other species of wildlife? How many vaccines will be necessary then? 50? 60? 100? There is already talk of developing a genetically
modified virus that could be transmitted animal to animal that would permanently sterilize an entire population. We have only begun to discover that we have already tainted our aquatic ecosystems(rivers and ground waters) with
an array of “medical chest” chemicals including, pain relievers, codeine, caffeine, antacids, antibiotics, cholesterol lowering drugs birth control pills, sex hormones, anti-depressants and estrogen replacements to name just a few.
Would immunocontraception add to that ecological burden, in ways we do not yet know? It is a chance we should not take, especially if based on the fanaticism of a small minority of highly vocal animal rights activists, determined
to stop hunting at all costs and to ultimately stop the killing of any and all animals, for any purpose, anytime and anywhere, by any means, even to feed America’s families.