Q&A

Question one

Is Montclair “overpopulated” with deer? How many deer are too many deer?

Short answer: There is no scientifically defensible deer population number for a place like Montclair. What matters is managing real impacts, not chasing a population target.

There is no agreed-upon target deer population density for a small, fragmented, suburban landscape like ours. The standard population metric cited most often comes from research conducted in large, continuous forests, studying forest ecosystem impacts— a landscape nothing like Montclair’s patchwork of roads, homes, businesses, yards, parks (a handful with small, wooded areas), and one small neighborhood-embedded preserve. Applying a specific forestry metric to a town like Montclair squeezes a complex, highly variable system into a single number that doesn’t describe what is actually happening on the ground here. It doesn’t transfer to Montclair.

So before we can even ask “are we overpopulated,” we’d need to answer: overpopulated relative to what standard? That can’t be named or measured even if we knew the exact population numbers in Montclair.

Whether wildlife feels like “too many” is mostly a matter of perception in an urban/suburban neighborhood. Some people barely notice deer, others find them a nuisance, others enjoy seeing them. None of that is wrong — it is different people noticing different things.

So, the focus belongs on the impacts people actually experience — garden damage for some, animal-vehicle incidents in certain areas — and on addressing those directly with targeted, non-lethal tools that work, rather than chasing a population figure the research doesn’t tie to those impacts in the first place.

Naming the real issue — and matching the solution to it — almost always turns out to be more effective, and more specific, than a vague call to reduce “overpopulation.”

More on deer-vehicle incidents in Montclair and on yard strategies that work.

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Question three

I heard some places “cull” deer. What does culling or lethal management actually involve?

What people picture when they hear “cull” is usually different from the practice. The standard method is baiting — luring deer with piles of corn or feed over several nights so they return to the same spot on a predictable schedule. Once a group, often an extended family unit, is gathered and feeding, shooters positioned in elevated tree stands kill them with firearms, bows, or crossbows. It is more like a mass execution.

It does not always go as planned and is inhumane

Killing with bow and crossbow, especially, has an elevated wound rate as a wounded deer can travel and die slowly well out of sight.

For example, Saddle River, in Bergen County, runs the only residential backyard bow-hunting program in the county. ABC7 New York reported on an image — too graphic to broadcast — of a wounded deer with an arrow through its face wandering through a backyard and quoted a resident describing wounded deer moving in excruciating pain from one property to the next.

At a borough council meeting, a resident asked the council to hold off on renewing the culling contract, stating that 80 police reports had been filed in connection with the hunting program — officers dispatched to help search for or retrieve wounded or dead deer on properties that do not allow hunting, and residents finding arrows on their land from nearby hunts.

It is not a one-time fix and is costly

Culling has to be repeated annually, indefinitely — Essex County’s own program has run every year since it began, with no end in sight. Removing deer creates open territory and more food per remaining animal, and lower density is known to increase fawn survival and reproduction, allowing populations to rebound. Deer from surrounding areas also move into the cleared territory. The conditions that draw deer to a place in the first place — food and cover in a landscape of yards — remain unchanged.

Culling costs $$. Essex County, for example, has spent over $1.7 million in taxpayer dollars (about $100,000 per year) over 17+ years of killing deer in the reservations.

Question five

How can I protect a rabbit nest from my dog and other predators?

Eastern cottontails nest right in open lawns — often in yards with dogs, since larger predators like raccoons and skunks tend to avoid areas where dogs are active. A nest looks like a shallow, grass-covered depression about four to six inches across. The mother visits only to nurse, once or twice a day at dawn and dusk, and otherwise stays away so she doesn’t draw attention to it. An unattended nest is normal, not abandoned.

If you find one:

• Don’t move it. The mother finds her babies by the nest’s exact position. Moving it even a few inches means she may not find them again.
• Keep dogs away from that patch, especially during off-leash time. A temporary cover during the day works well — a laundry basket, a wire dome, or a small chicken-wire fence staked down with a gap the mother can pass through. Make sure it is removed or clearly open by dusk, when she feeds them.
• Check the lawn before mowing. A shallow, grass-covered patch is easy to miss and easy to look for in advance.
• Otherwise leave them alone. Checking on them frequently adds stress and can draw predators. The less human and pet activity around the nest, the better their odds.
• It is short-term. Nestlings are usually out of the nest and independent within about three to four weeks.

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Question seven

Does local pond fishing create risk for wildlife?

It does — particularly at Edgemont and Yantacaw ponds, which host ducks, geese, turtles, herons, and other water birds. Fishing is already illegal at both, but people are not complying, and residents report finding discarded line and hooks on the ground or caught in trees and turtle platforms.

Lead tackle

Lead sinkers and jigs are toxic when swallowed. Waterbirds ingest them either by mistaking them for the small stones they deliberately swallow to help grind food, or by eating a fish with tackle still attached. A single lead sinker can be a lethal dose for a bird the size of a duck or goose.

This is not a fringe concern. Lead-tackle poisoning has been documented in more than 30 bird species along with turtles and mammals, and six states — Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington — now restrict small lead sinkers specifically because of it. Vermont’s law covers sinkers of half an ounce or less. Turtles and herons, both present at Montclair’s ponds, are among the documented at-risk species.

A small pond is not the lower-risk setting people assume. Sinkers and jigs snag on submerged branches, rocks, and shoreline vegetation, which is exactly the structure small ponds have plenty of. And a small pond concentrates the risk rather than diluting it: a lost sinker in a large lake is one object across a wide area, while the same sinker in a small pond sits in a confined space that birds are using intensively for feeding, grit-swallowing, and rearing young.

Discarded line

Line left behind, whether tangled in shoreline brush or lost in the water, causes entanglement injuries in birds, turtles, and other wildlife. Waterbirds also work loose line into nest material, which then entangles both parents and chicks. Wildlife rehabilitation centers treat geese, herons, and turtles for exactly this kind of injury on a routine basis.

What helps

• Follow the law. Don’t fish the small ponds. There are larger local lakes where it is both legal and lower-risk.
• Switch to non-lead tackle. Tin, steel, tungsten, and bismuth alternatives are widely available and inexpensive.
• Never leave line behind. Pack it out, and consider collecting any you find. If your line snags, call Animal Control or the Township and ask them to remove it.
• Report injured wildlife — a bird trailing line, or a lethargic waterbird, which is a common lead-poisoning sign — to Animal Control or a licensed rehabilitator rather than handling the animal yourself. See our rescues page.

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