The State - News from July 20, 1986

Rangers at Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay are trying to figure out how to thin the burgeoning deer herd there without incurring the wrath of animal lovers. The 740-acre island can only support a healthy population of about 50 deer, but by last year, the herd had swelled to more than six times that many. Ranger Tom Lindberg said 120 were killed recently to bring the herd more into balance with available feed, but “with 5 million (Bay Area residents) watching us, we’re walking on eggs. . . . What we were facing was starvation,” he said. “If we’d let nature take its course, there’d have been dead deer all over this place.” Animal rights groups have opposed shootings in the past, but alternative methods of control, including efforts at sterilization, have proved unsuccessful.