The Fish and Game Council is an eleven member quasi-legislative state board that has the power to decide what animals can be hunted, the lengths of the hunting seasons, and how many animals each hunter may kill. All but one member of the Council is a hunter. The NJ Federation of Sportsmen is a hunting organization that holds six of the eleven seats on the NJ Fish and Game Council. Notice how much pride is taken in the fact that they have helped produce such an unnaturally large deer herd. NJ's deer herds have been sculpted by both the NJ Fish and Game Council and the NJ Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife for the sake of recreational hunting.
Habitat management is encouraged on other public and private lands.
Limited burning, wood harvest and planting of various agricultural crops favored by deer can increase the carrying capacity by increasing the quality and quantity of food available. From the mid-1970's through the 1980's, the Division and the Fish and Game Council sought to allow deer numbers to increase within sections of the inner coastal plain including Salem, western Cumberland, Gloucester, northwestern Burlington and western Monmouth counties. By 1990, with the exceptions of Island Beach State Park, a small portion of Cape May County located below the Cape May canal and a few other isolated areas, deer occupied all available range. The Effect of Deer Hunting When a large number of deer are removed from a herd through hunting, competition for food, water, space and breeding opportunities is reduced. The herd reacts to the sudden kill with increased breeding, and, with plenty of food to go around, more females become pregnant and twin and triplet births often occur.