OLD TAPPAN—A senior Department of Environmental Protection biologist will provide local and regional options to Northern Valley and Pascack Valley officials in Old Tappan to address concerns about deer overpopulation, potential deer tick-spread Lyme disease and increasing motor vehicle accidents caused by deer.
The DEP presentation, by NJDEP Senior Biologist Brian Schumm, will include a question and answer period for officials and the public, on Monday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Old Tappan Borough Council meeting.
Schumm tells Northern Valley Press, “While a lone municipality can certainly achieve a meaningfully reduced population size with significantly reduced deer–human conflicts, a regional approach to deer management has great benefits.”
He added, “Deer management in suburban areas is complex and collaboration between communities can help identify and effectuate solutions to a regional abundance problem better than one community alone. Collaboration also helps prevent a lone municipality from bearing a disproportionate responsibility for any deer population reduction efforts.”
Schumm told us that he will offer options and actions that individual landowners as well as a town might wish to take to minimize future deer conflicts and impacts.
“NJDEP Fish & Wildlife has been working with various municipalities in Bergen County for years with surveys indicating that parts of the county are significantly overpopulated with deer,” said Schumm.
He added, “Habitat fragmentation is a key contributor, with residents living in high building-density developments far from green spaces generally experiencing reduced deer populations compared to their neighbors living within a few blocks of green spaces.”
Old Tappan Mayor Thomas Gallagher, who invited Schumm and all Pascack Valley mayors to the meeting, said complaints about deer have been increasing and hoped the NJDEP official might offer deer management options to start a “conversation” among mayors and public officials.
Gallagher said the public is welcomed and, moreover, encouraged to attend.