Save the Exotic Deer of Point Reyes National Seashore
For more than half a century, the beautiful White Fallow and Spotted Axis Deer have made Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) their home, delighting visitors and residents alike. However, starting in June 2007, the National Park Service (NPS) started exterminating the deer, even though they have no proof that they are negatively impacting the environment. Why? Because the White Fallow and Spotted Axis Deer are non-native species, intentionally released into the area by a hunter in 1948.
In June 2007, NPS started the killing as part of their non-native extermination policies. Using $750,000 in taxpayer’s money, they hired a Connecticut-based company called White Buffalo, Inc. to both sterilize and shoot the deer with the ultimate aim of exterminating the entire herd by 2021. White Buffalo’s key “management” methods is “remote euthanasia” – a euphemism for sharpshooting that sounds humane, but isn’t. These hired guns spread corn on the ground to attract the deer, then killed more than 80 of animals (starting with the Fallow Deer) by shooting them in their heads or necks.
Or so they claim. In August, recreational hunters discovered the carcasses of several deer shot in the body and left to rot for days, their eyes eaten from their sockets by vultures. With doubts being raised about their sharpshooters’ accuracy, White Buffalo categorically denied responsibility for the killings. After initiating a forensic investigation to determine who killed the deer, park officials temporarily suspended the extermination project, which they plan to resume next summer.
In addition to spending time on sharpshooting detail, White Buffalo staff also injected another 80 female deer with a contraceptive called GonaCon, then tagged the animals and fitted them with radio collars that enable tracking. The company will recapture the deer next year to see whether this method effectively prevented them from breeding. It is because of the efforts of IDA and other animal protection groups that contraception is even being attempted: if left to do as they please, NPS would probably have already shot and killed every last deer.
IDA, along with the Marin Humane Society, Wildcare and local residents of Pt. Reyes is dedicated to stopping NPS’s extermination plan, and implementing a 100% non-lethal contraception program for the White Fallow and Spotted Axis Deer in the park. California Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma has joined us in advocating humane management of the herd, and sent a letter to NPS just before the hunters were brought in emphasizing that more study of alternatives is needed. We have requested a meeting with Senator Barbara Boxer to secure her support, as well.
Stay tuned for updates on this campaign as we continue to fight eradication of the deer.
* The other members of the coalition are the Marin Humane Society, Wildcare, Friends of the White Deer, and residents of Point Reyes.
The Basic Facts:
- The Fallow and Axis Deer were brought to the 100-square-mile Point Reyes National Seashore by humans in 1948. The deer have since naturalized in the vast and beautiful surroundings.
- In June 2007, NPS began killing the Fallow Deer as part of their non-native extermination policies.
- The Point Reyes Deer Coalition is calling for humane management of the population of deer, not extermination, in order to preserve the deer, which are beloved by locals and the millions of tourists who visit the seashore annually.
The National Park Service Plan:
- Under the leadership of Point Reyes National Seashore Superintendent Don Neubacher, NPS hired White Buffalo, Inc. to both sterilize and shoot the deer with the ultimate aim of exterminating the entire herd by 2021. The company shot and killed more than 80 Fallow Deer between June and August 2007, and administered contraceptives to another 80.
- The ugly truth about NPS's methods was exposed by recently-retired Channel Island National Park Superintendent, Tim J. Setnicka, who publicly documented the accepted system of false vilification of targeted animals, purposeful misrepresentation of scientific facts to the public, lack of thorough scientific research, and the inhumane deaths of the animals involved.
- NPS defends their hasty extermination of all the Fallow and Axis Deer by claiming that they are harming the environment and taking food from native Black-tailed Deer. However, NPS has so far presented no documentation to support this claim, but rather than making an effort to study the deer’s actual impact on the seashore’s ecosystem, the NPS has proceeded to simply destroy them.
Find out What You Can Do!
Sign the petition to help save the Point Reyes Deer!
Read Dr. Jane Goodall's letter regarding the proposed plan.
View a gallery of photos by Trish Carney