Raritan Valley Community College
IN-25: Innovation B

For the past two years, RVCC has had professional bow-hunters come to campus once weekly during deer hunting season to reduce the deer populations on campus. Harvested deer is donated to feed the hungry, through the Hunters Helping the Hungry program in Pennsylvania. Historically, white-tailed deer populations in New Jersey were estimated to occur at densities of approximately 8-12 deer/mi2. Due to a variety of factors, including the loss of predators (e.g., wolves), forest fragmentation, and suburban development, deer populations in central New Jersey are now far higher than their natural background levels and amongst the highest in the state and throughout their range. Studies conducted by the General Ecology class at Raritan Valley Community College found the campus population to be 197 deer/mi2. Elevated deer populations of this kind are associated with a number of important problems, including increased incidence of Lyme Disease, car collisions, damage to landscape, garden and agricultural plants, inhibition of forest regeneration, decimation of endangered plant populations, impacts to nesting bird habitat and other consequences. Densities of 10-20 deer/mi2 have been found to have negative impacts on preferred plant species that they feed on, and densities of 20-30/mi2 have been found to completely inhibit forest regeneration. Given the impacts to our campus natural areas, gardens, landscaping and surrounding community, deer management is greatly needed to reduce the population to less problematic levels. Over the course of two years, the hunters harvested 59 deer on campus. The resulting deer population was reduced by over 50%.