The United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, ruled on August 22 that the Fire Island National Seashore (FINS) can move forward with plans to construct fencing in the Sunken Forest and employ both lethal and non-lethal methods to control the white-tailed deer population within it, according to a report released by Courthouse News Service.
Former owners of a large part of the Sunken Forest territory, Wildlife Preserves, a non-profit conservation organization that had deeded the maritime forest lands to the federal government in the 1950s and ‘60s, filed litigation against FINS shortly after the release of their Deer Management Plan in 2016, stating that deer culling within the forest violated covenants within the deeds.
After years of this case working its way through the legal system, the Circuit Court judges deemed that the FINS plan does not violate the terms of the deeds.
“White-tailed deer are the ‘dominant herbivore in the Sunken Forest’ and are responsible for the depletion of ‘important canopy constituents,’ including American holly,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan in the majority opinion.
However, the decision was not unanimous among the three Circuit panel judges. Judge Myrna Pérez dissented, stating that while the FINS plan was “ecologically sound,” the deed provisions did not support the lethal control methods it outlines.
Fire Island National Seashore has been culling white tail deer in the Sunken Forest since 2020, while this lawsuit was working its was through they court system.
