Max Broad: As Rock Creek Park begins its annual deer cull, NPS needs to opt instead for a nonviolent solution

The National Park Service (NPS) recently began its eighth year of killing deer in Rock Creek Park, with culling activity scheduled to occur between Nov. 22 and March 31. NPS would like you to believe that this is necessary to protect the ecosystem. But that is not the whole story. NPS is opting to take the deer’s lives when there is a sensible and humane alternative.

In lieu of killing, the Park Service could manage the deer population through contraceptives. This is a technology that has been around since the 1980s. It is tested, safe and effective at reducing population counts, and booster shots can be administered remotely by dart. It is almost too good to be true.

NPS has used logistical challenges — such as the need to administer booster doses over time — as justification to continue killing. But these hurdles are no more intensive than the task of tracking the deer down with guns in hand, as evidenced by the fact that NPS has had to bring in sharpshooters every year for almost a decade (with no end in sight) as it seeks to reduce the population of deer in Rock Creek Park. Indeed, the contraceptives need only a couple of doses to work, raising the possibility that nonlethal control is the more efficient approach.

Instead of investing in the humane option, NPS is doubling down on its hunting operation. Building out from Rock Creek Park, the agency is expanding into parks in eastern DC — including Anacostia Park, Kenilworth Park and Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Fort Mahan, Fort Dupont, Fort Davis, Fort Chaplin, Fort Stanton, Fort Ricketts, Fort Greble, Battery Carroll and Shepherd Parkway — as well as several more in neighboring areas of Maryland. In its draft Environmental Assessment, NPS ruled out contraceptives on the grounds that it does not meet the agency’s standards for wildlife control. But these standards were developed years ago without external input from the scientific community. Rather than turn its back on contraceptives, NPS should bring in experts and stakeholders to ensure that its criteria are aligned with current science. 

This is why DC Council members Vincent Gray (Ward 7) and Mary Cheh (Ward 3) as well as DC’s shadow representative to Congress, Oye Owolewa, all voiced support earlier this year for contraceptives as an alternative to killing.

Even if the Park Service will not update its criteria for contraceptives, agency officials should demonstrate to taxpayers that they are using funds wisely. Are annual hunting trips to the park really a more cost-effective method than managing the population through a few doses of contraceptives? 

It’s frustrating to see the National Park Service managing DC green spaces with such poor transparency. The agency has not convincingly demonstrated that eight years of culling of DC wildlife has improved park ecosystems. NPS should be doing better science on deer management, and making publicly available their methods for studying and measuring progress toward their goals.

For a variety of reasons, some of our neighbors who live near Rock Creek Park despise the deer. But we should question whether there is reason enough to kill any deer. With the availability of contraceptives, we should question why NPS is killing at all. 

Max Broad is president of DC Voters for Animals, which works to lift up the policies and politicians in the District doing the most for animals.

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