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At a press conference on a rainy Thursday morning in the woods bordering Pawlings Road, park officials and state legislators attributed the denuded park woodlands, prevalence of Lyme disease and deer-vehicle collisions to deer overpopulation in Valley Forge.
"This is a serious public health issue," said state Sen. Andrew Dinniman, a Democrat representing Chester County's 19th Dist.
Throughout the past two decades, the deer population has risen substantially, according to the park service. When the animals were counted by park staff between 1997 and 2006, they determined the density rose from 154 to 244 deer per square mile.
The current density is about 14 times that recommended by the state to sustain forest regeneration in the 3,500-acre park.
As the park service develops a general management plan, which will include a deer-management strategy, the federal agency must follow the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The process mandates public meetings.
On Thursday, park Superintendent Michael Caldwell wouldn't be pinned down on a target number of deer that might be killed if a shooting program is carried out.
"We don't want to want to prejudge the number," he said.
Currently, public hunts are prohibited in national parks. Whether the park service would hire a sharpshooter to cull Valley Forge's herd is yet to be determined.
"It's way too early to say," Caldwell said. "That call will be made by the National Park Service."
The park service will also consider non-lethal alternatives to deer control such as birth control and capture and release programs.
Officials believe the results of the NEPA process would likely strike a balance to accommodate both vegetation and deer.
"We recognize deer are part of the ecosystem," said Meghan Carfioli, a park ecologist. "We don't want to get rid of the deer."
Looking at green foliage that has grown within a 100-foot-square enclosure since 1994 near the Walnut Hill park entrance, the 31-year-old King of Prussia native said much of the vegetation did not exist when she visited the park as a child.
"There are plants here that in my lifetime I hadn't seen (before)," Carfioli said.
Deer eat, or browse, a variety of woodland vegetation. In fact, a "browse line" can be observed at a height of about six feet, she said. Typically, deer eat plants that grow low to the ground, then work their way up to low hanging tree leaves.
"We find there are very few plants in the park higher than 25 centimeters (10 inches)," Carfioli. "Deer eat them, then they get up on their hind legs and browse higher plants. You generally won't see leaves below six feet."
Though deer are by no means finicky eaters, Carfioli pointed to a dense patch of Japanese Stilt Grass that survives.
"They don't eat that," she said.
Carfioli said there are a total of 30 small fenced-in areas visible on Mount Joy and Mount Misery in Valley Forge.
Contraceptive darting, developed by wildlife biologist Jay Fitzpatrick and his colleagues, has been used to curb deer populations on New York's Fire Island and horses on Assateague Island.
This method is preferred by Plymouth Meeting resident Gloria Feldscher who opposes hunting.
"(Contraception) is very effective in controlling the deer population," she said.
However, critics of contraceptive darting question the method's effectiveness in reducing birth rates of deer in the wild, and claim tagging and monitoring deer for such programs is more time consuming and expensive than killing the animals.
Feldscher was emotionally affected hearing gunfire during a deer hunt at Norristown Farm Park for the first time.
"I will never forget that sensation," she said. "When you hear that, you know something beautiful is dying."
Contraception is one of many deer reduction strategies the park service will consider during it public review, according to information available on Valley Forge's Web site www.nps.gov/vafo.
On Nov. 8 and 9, the park will hold meetings to get feedback from the public. The first will be held at Valley Forge's Education Center at 4 p.m.; the second, at Tredyffrin Township's municipal building from 6 to 9 p.m.
The park service expects that a deer-management plan will be completed in 2008 and carried out the following year.
