Sharpshooters Would be Hired to Shoot Deer in Cuyahoga Park Under Park Service Plan

The National Park Service has released a plan to begin shooting white-tail deer in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, in order to protect biodiversity in the park located between Akron and Cleveland.

Sharpshooters would be asked to kill as may as 375 deer a year for four years under the plan, according to a report Thursday in the Akron Beacon Journal. Another 175 deer could be killed in the fifth year, while a number of other deer could be captured and put to sleep, the report said.

After four years of reducing the deer herd through hunting and euthanasia, the national park hopes to implement a plan where as many as 400 does would be given contraception.

However, if that plan doesn’t work or can’t be implemented, the Beacon Journal reported, park officials are prepared to continue contracting sharpshooters to maintain a healthy deer population.

Before releasing the plan Thursday, the National Park Service had been studying how to address deer overpopulation in the Cuyahoga Valley park for eight years.

The plan considered four options for reducing the deer population before deciding to move forward with sharpshooting (by a designated contractor) and contraception.

A notice of the report will be published in the Federal Register, and 30 days later the National Park Service’s Midwest director should finalize the plan, provided the agency gets federal approval, the Beacon Journal reported.

The Park Service hopes to begin implementing the deer management plan this winter.

According to the plan, as reported in the Beacon Journal, “sharpshooters would shoot the deer at night from baited stands in areas of the park closed to the public. The venison would be donated to local food banks.”

Officials estimated in 2013 that the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (33,000 acres) had 1,700 deer. Deer numbers are important to manage, park officials have said, because the deer eat or otherwise destroy vegetation and trees.