To manage deer population, NJ residents are fine with hunting

Democrats and Republicans agree on something: Hunting deer is A-OK in the Garden State.

According to a survey released Friday by Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll and the New Jersey Farm Bureau, New Jersey residents across party lines strongly support hunting as a way of controlling the state's deer population. Overall, 62% approve of deer hunting, which received majority support from Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Seven in 10 New Jerseyans, meanwhile, believe there should be deer management plans in place on government-owned lands. That's up from 57% when the question was last asked in 2015.

"What the research really brings to light is the fact that people are being inconvenienced by deer," said Rich Higginson, director of consumer research for FDU polling.

In the poll of 1,203 adults, many cited negative run-ins with deer.

Nearly 40% of respondents said they've either been in an auto accident involving a deer or know someone who has. The likelihood soared to 61% among those living in the northwestern segment of the state (Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties).

Of the 81% of New Jersey residents who said they have plants and landscaping, a third reported that a deer had damaged or destroyed it at least once.

"In addition to crop and landscape damage, surplus deer ravage the state's woodlands new growth," said Peter Furey with the Farm Bureau. "Not enough people are talking about this environmental issue."

More than a quarter of all New Jerseyans rate deer as a very serious problem, according to the poll.

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