Dozens of local landowners gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial Tuesday night to discuss ideas on a big problem facing the park: deer populations. They say that right now, deer are destroying habitats for other animals, preventing forests from regenerating, and taking out important memorial fixtures, like the flight 93 remember me rose garden.
“The overabundance of deer is absolutely annihilating the understory of our forests,”
“We’ve just found that the deer population is adversely affecting our vegetation, the forest resilience, we’re losing a lot of growth in the forest and it’s causing a lot of invasive species to come and grow.
Officials with the National Parks Service say that to resolve the issue, a deer management plan has begun development at three western Pennsylvania parks Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Friendship Hill National Historic Site and Flight 93 National Memorial. Tuesday night’s meeting kicked off the first step of the plan, where officials presented several ideas for reducing the populations.
“One we’re looking at is culling, which is our preferred alternative right now. There are numerous parks like Gettysburg, Valley Forge, that do a lot of deer culling with the population.”
Local landowners and farmers impacted by the deer populations pitched in their ideas, with some advocating for lethal methods like culling or allowing hunters onto the property, and others supporting building fencing around the park.
“We’ll be looking at and synthesizing all of the comments. And then incorporating them into, taking them into consideration when we actually write a plan. So, we’re hoping by next summer and next fall to maybe have a draft plan in place,”