It’s deer season in Washington DC’s Rock Creek Park

WASHINGTON — What to do about Bambi? And Bambo, Bamba, Bambini, and all of their brothers and sisters, too?

This is precisely the question faced by the National Park Service after it counted a huge increase in deer sightings in Washington DC's Rock Creek Park. Instead of letting 2012 get out of hand, it has devised a plan.

Shooters will enter the park at night in late autumn and winter to pick off all the excess Bambis until the deer population gets to a more manageable number. The weapons used will be “high-power, small-caliber rifles or, if permitted, a bow and arrow,” wrote DCist. The NPS will also devise non-lethal methods, including birth control, to stem the deer explosion.

Though the graceful creatures are a serene sight for visitors to the large park, they are not natural inhabitants of the area. Deer were once an uncommon sight in Rock Creek Park, the Washington Post reported.

In a press release announcing the hunting decision, the NPS said "there are no historic sightings of white-tailed deer population in Rock Creek Park prior to 1960." The number climbed until it reached a peak in 2007 of 82 deer per square mile of park. 80 were counted in 2011.

The NPS says the huge number of deer – a result of a dearth of predators like the mountain lion – creates environmental problems. Tree saplings and other plants are less likely to make it to adulthood.