Hunters to harvest Winchester deer

WINCHESTER, Va. (AP) — The state has authorized a limited hunt to reduce the city’s burgeoning deer population.

About double the number of naturally supportable deer are living in the western half of Winchester this year. Crowding has forced the animals to eat poisonous plants, scavenge and intrude on portions of the Glen Burnie Historic House and Gardens.

“What was more disturbing for us was that two deer got caught in our water features and drowned,” said Jennifer Esler, Glen Burnie executive director.

Parts of the Glen Burnie property, settled in the 18th century, were donated to form the city of Winchester. The area has acres of formal gardens, and the Glen Burnie Historic House is furnished with 18th- and 19th-century art objects and antiques.

Virginia’s Game and Inland Fisheries Department approved the hunting request earlier this week. The deer harvest began Tuesday and is scheduled to continue either until May 4 or until 45 deer have been killed.

Virginia is not the only state with a wildlife problem.

Wildlife officials estimate that over the past decade the black bear population has grown from 14,000 to about 40,000 in the Appalachian region, which includes Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

In October, Maryland will hold its first bear hunt since 1953. Sportsmen will be permitted to kill 30 black bears in the mountains of Western Maryland, where an estimated 500 of them live.

While Winchester and Glen Burnie share the deer overpopulation burden, hunting is only at Glen Burnie.

“The museum is the only landowner big enough where the harvest can take place,” Miss Esler said. “It’s the safest way we can do this.”

Four officers from the Winchester Police Department’s special operations team are participating, along with one animal control officer. Officers are using rifles with suppressors to reduce gun noise, but the sounds are not completely silenced, said Police Chief Gary W. Reynolds.

Miss Esler called on Winchester’s government to create a long-term plan to keep deer populations in check. She said a two-week hunt wouldn’t solve the overpopulation problem.

“This is an attempt to address an immediate problem,” she said. “It’s not an immediate solution.”

Virginia’s 2003 deer harvest was 235,944. The number represented a nearly 10 percent increase from the 2002 harvest of 214,847, according to preliminary state statistics.