ASPEN HILL, MD—As recommended in the Montgomery County Deer Management Work Group’s fiscal year 2008 annual report and in response to overwhelming community support, the Montgomery County Department of Parks announces today that it will add Rock Creek Stream Valley Unit #7 as an additional park location for its active deer management operations.
“I am strongly in favor of the County taking steps to remove as many deer as possible,” wrote one supportive community member in response to the department’s request for public input to add Rock Creek Stream Valley Unit #7, in Aspen Hill between Route 28 and Viers Mill Road, into its deer management program.
Through November 1, 2007, this fall, the Department of Parks welcomed public input from park neighbors and other interested parties about whether the Rock Creek Stream Valley park site should officially join the ranks of active deer management operations. Overwhelmingly, the comments received for this addition to the program were supportive.
Another community member wrote, “I fully support the effort as described (including Rock Creek Stream Valley Park between Route 28 and Viers Mill Road).”
Twenty-five of the thirty written responses received by the Department of Parks on the Rock Creek Stream Valley park proposal emphatically supported the addition. Several community members cited fear of deer-vehicle collisions, damage to residential gardens and concerns about Lyme disease as primary reasons for expanding the operations to include this park site.
“I am VERY in favor of a deer management hunt in Rock Creek Park between Route 28 and Viers Mill Road,” as noted in one public response. “My wife will not drive on Old Baltimore Road at night because of the very likely possibility of getting run into (or running into) by deer crossing the road, especially during the rutting season.”
Public comments received also called for the department to consider including additional park sites into the operations even beyond the Rock Stream Valley park location proposed, such as Quince Orchard Park and Paint Branch Park.
For more than a decade, the Department of Parks has worked to control deer populations in select county parks through managed hunts and Maryland-National Capital Park Police based sharpshooting operations. These operations are conducted carefully and with the utmost regard for protecting public safety. Private hunters conducting managed shotgun hunts for deer in county parks must meet the highest level of state and county safety standards in order to participate and the sharpshooting operations in the parks are conducted by expertly trained Park Police officers only.
With the addition of Rock Creek Stream Valley Park, seven Montgomery County parks will now have active Maryland-National Capital Park Police based sharpshooting programs to control deer. Now through March 31, 2008 from Sunset to Sunrise—at night when the parks are closed to the public—the following parks are closed to conduct these operations:
– Agricultural History Farm Park, Derwood
– Black Hill Regional Park, Boyds
– North Branch Stream Valley Park, Derwood
– Northwest Branch Park, Aspen Hill
– Rock Creek Regional Park, Rockville
– Wheaton Regional Park, Wheaton
– Rock Creek Stream Valley Unit #7, Aspen Hill
For more on the Department of Parks deer management program, including the Montgomery County Deer Management Work Group’s annual report and the public comments received on the Rock Creek Stream Valley park proposal, visit www.mc-mncppc.org/environment/deer.
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Contact:
Kelli Holsendolph
Media Relations Manager
Montgomery County Department of Parks
(301) 650-2866