Why Are There So Many Deer at This Popular New Jersey Beach?

Whenever the holidays roll around, you can spot new visitors taking a stroll around Fort Hancock and along Sandy Hook's multi-use trail. What's not to love? Gateway National Park in New Jersey offers beautiful views of the Highlands hills and the Manhattan skyline; passive recreation along the six-mile stretch of the peninsula; a fascinating history pre-dating the Revolutionary War; and an abundance of wildlife on this somewhat isolated stretch of the Jersey Shore.

No wonder it becomes a frequent destination for families and groups of friends when the holiday lull sends us looking for ways to occupy the downtime.

When I returned back home for the Thanksgiving holiday and took my regular trek to Sandy Hook, I noticed a new set of visitors: dozens and dozens of deer.

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Of course, deer have been around Sandy Hook for years and munching on the vast tree and shrub buffet the place offers. What struck me this time was just how damn many of them there were -- and how indifferent they were to presence of people and cars. On several occasions during this long Thanksgiving weekend, I would get within three feet of one and she would blink absently, keeping me in her sightline but otherwise not moving.

How Did All the Deer Get to Sandy Hook?

I spotted a truck with a business sign on the side advertising an Oceanport-based deer control business and flagged the driver down, hoping he'd have some insight into why the deer population exploded on Sandy Hook recently.

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The deer boom at the park is the result of an extremely cold winter we had a few years back. The cold led to large patches of ice in the Shrewsbury River and along the Sandy Hook Bay. The deer crossed over to the barrier island on the ice, found a wealth of food and wide open spaces to stroll and proceeded to breed like crazy, the man told me.

I mean, can you blame them?