MAIL BAG â??LETTERS FROM READERS

At least 2,661 deer have been killed by hunters in Tyler State Park in Newtown, and there is no end in sight to this violence against Bucks County deer. The tranquil and historic Tyler State Park was turned into a killing field on Dec. 5, when 150 hunters with shotguns and muzzleloaders were allowed to kill 84 deer living at the park. Also, bowhunting was to be allowed in a section of the park through Jan. 26.

There are humane and non-lethal solutions to deer/human conflicts, including deterrents that protect property. Warning signs for motorists and scientifically designed light reflectors have been effective in reducing deer-vehicle collisions. Keep in mind that these animals are running for their lives. Immuno-contraception for deer addresses the core problem – reproduction -- and provides a long-term solution. Shooting animals in Tyler State Park, where deer are at home and unafraid of people, is inhumane.

Bowhunting is a cruel method of killing deer that should not be permitted anywhere, let alone in an urban park. With bowhunting, wounding and crippling are inevitable. Most deer are not rendered immediately unconscious and death takes place over several minutes. Many are not killed by the arrow, and run off, wounded, only to die days later from internal bleeding and infection.

The lethal management of deer at Tyler State Park is obviously a failure, since the killing has to be repeated year after year, and still does not achieve the desired objective of reducing the population sufficiently to prevent damage to the park's diversity and vegetation, stop damage to nearby residential properties or to prevent deer/vehicle collisions.

Overpopulation is often blamed for deer-vehicle collisions, but killing deer will not decrease these types of incidents. As long as there is attractive and available habitat, deer from surrounding areas will move in and occupy the vacant niche. We have yet to see any evidence to show that bowhunting reduces deer/car collisions. Quite the opposite is true: hunting causes conflicts between motorists and deer, who flee from the hunters once they are wounded or frightened, and in a desperate attempt to escape, often run into roads. As a recent study by Erie Insurance Company in Pennsylvania concluded, the rate of collisions between deer and vehicles increased three to four times during hunting season.

You can help by voicing your concerns with a phone call or hard copy letter to :

Tyler State Park Manager Brian Flores

101 Swamp Road

Newtown, PA 18940

215-968-2021

The zeal with which people who don't work or who work for others fantasize about taking the wealth from those who produce jobs and opportunities for others never ceases to amaze me.

The fact is even Obama's plan to steal from the rich will do virtually nothing to reduce our national debt or give our children an economic future. It is a form of mass economic suicide, a fulfillment of every Marxist or Stalinist dream.

So obsessed we are about professional sports that, as a nation we are distracted by this one undeniable fact. The deeper we go into debt the more the families that control the Federal Reserve and the banks they own and Goldman-Sachs get richer and richer. We are not indentured slaves with no hope of escape. The bloodless revolution has taken place and the lives of all those who died to defend our Constitution have been for naught!

A crying shame, but reality. Have a nice expensive fat-cat vacation in Hawaii Chairman Obama.

Patricia Marks Wilkes-Barre Joseph DuPont Towanda