The plaintiff in an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to stop a special archery-only deer hunting season in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., filed an appeal Friday with Maryland’s second-highest court, Bethesda magazine reports. The plaintiff, Eilene Cohhn, a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), claimed that the Montgomery County program violated Maryland’s cruelty code.
PETA’s general counsel, Jeff Kerr, said, “The only way to curb the deer population is by reducing the food available to them—not by cruelly killing them.” There’s not enough Agent Orange on the planet to eradicate every birch, begonia and blade of grass in Montgomery County, but if there were, the deer would simply starve—which contradicts PETA lawyer Jenni James’ claim that “lethal methods just don’t work.”
The Maryland DNR says the hunts have helped cut deer-vehicle collisions by half in the county. Even so, more than 2,000 such crashes are reported each year.
