The radical and grandstanding animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) lost its attempt to block a Maryland bowhunt aimed at reducing whitetail overpopulation in urban parks located in Montgomery County.
On Aug. 25, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Steven G. Salant ruled the county’s archery hunt to reduce deer numbers does not violate the state’s cruelty code, as alleged by PETA member Eilene Cohhn in her 2015 lawsuit against the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. In September 2015 the court refused to issue a temporary restraining order requested by PETA to block hunting in two county parks until Cohhn’s suit was heard.
Bethesda Magazine reports the parks have culled deer for the past 19 years due to health and safety, though the agency has only recently opted for bowhunting because of new regulations prohibiting the discharge of firearms in certain areas.
More and more cities and municipalities throughout the whitetail-rich portion of the Northeast and Midwest U.S. are opting for bowhunting as the solution to deer overpopulation and the problems that accompany it, including a spike in auto accidents and incidents of Lyme disease. From Connecticut to Arkansas, cites and counties usually impose strict guidelines for participating hunting archers, often including shooting proficiency tests, meat donation to local charities, doe-only restrictions and used of elevated treestands for short-distance shots.
A 2014 survey conducted in Watts Branch Stream Valley Park in Potomac determined there were 67 to 84 deer per square mile, according to Montgomery Parks reports. In its public hearings prior to implementing the bowhunt last year, the parks agency said acceptable deer density levels should be 30 or fewer deer per square mile in an effort to decrease deer-involved vehicle crashes and local cases of Lyme disease.
Following last week’s summary judgment issued by Judge Salant against Cohhn and PETA, the Norfolk, Va.-based animal rights group issued an official statement on its online blog, featuring its all-to-familiar, anthropomorphic jargon.
“We are extremely disappointed by the ruling and deeply saddened about the fate of the deer, who are Montgomery County’s gentle Cecils. The day will come when human beings must recognize that wild animals have a right to live on their ancestral lands and not be forced out and slaughtered simply for living as they have for generations. We’d like to point out that the county’s ‘management’ program appears to be purposely set up to increase the size of deer families each year so as to make more living targets for hunters. Were that not the case, after all these years, the population of deer would have declined, and it has not. PETA believes this act of violence needs to be replaced with a program of chemical sterilizers if the county cannot ‘live and let live.“
PETA has not yet announced if it will appeal Judge Salant’s ruling.
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