surprising number of deer in Voorhees

[long-a-coming]

I work in Voorhees, near the Main St. Complex. This is certainly not the pine Barrens but the areas around Alluvium Development and Cooper Road have some Pine barren characteristics to them. Cooper road eventually runs over 73 right into the pines. Anyway in a fenced area that is a landfill on Centennial road I was surprised to see at least 25 deer grazing in a large field right around 4:30pm in early March. The soil is contaminated and there have been problems with the nearby housing development due to the landfill. I was just surprised to see many large deer in this area. The area is only fenced on three sides and it backs up to woods and Alluvium development.
Has anyone else seen these deer?

 

[JerseyJim]

Do you mean the deer with the two heads and five legs?

 

[RednekF350]

I grew up in Gibbsboro and hunted that landfill for deer and small game starting in 1968. It was owned by the Buzby Brothers.
The deer have been there at least that long.
My father dropped me off one night to bowhunt there with a friend of mine and we got stalked by a pack of dogs that used to roam the dump.
My father trapped alot of those dogs with a huge box trap lent to him by the Animal Welfare Association which is still open further down the road.
In the back of the landfill was an old swim club called Haddonbrook.
It was going to be the center of a development that never got off the ground.
It closed in the 1960's and then sat until about 1979 when Canuso came along and built the Woods of Alluvium with an entrance on Kresson Road. There was a lake in Haddonbrook too where I killed my first ducks as a kid and fished for bass and crappie.
Gibbsboro was like Mayberry then and I literally had a gun holder on my the back of my bicycle. I would ride to the dump or to Haddonbrook from my house after school to hunt. I had a newspaper basket (you don't see them anymore) on the front for my decoys!
Now the town is struggling to stay small and simple in the midst of the suburban nightmare of Voorhees.
That is why I moved to the edge of Wharton. It is as close to the way I grew up as I can find. I can walk out my door with a gun and walk into the woods across the street and my kids were able to hunt after school as I did .
The deer you are seeing on the dump have been there for a long time and the herd will continue to increase because there aren't many kids today that are hunting them off of a bicycle.
Scott

 

[long-a-coming]

Thank You for that wealth of information.
My in-laws live in Gibbsboro so I know exactly what your talking about the struggle for that town to stay small. I moved to Berlin two years ago and I like the fact that I can be in the pines quickly if I want to escape suburbia. My son is ten months old and I can't wait to show him this incredible place.


Some of those deer in that dump were huge!

 

[PBJ1971]

...about the struggle for that town to stay small.

I know exactly just what you mean. I live in a very small town called Belleplain, here in Northern Cape May County. The majority of our town is protected by state forest boundries, and we have a total of about 700 people living here. Most of them (my husband's family included) have been here for generations. Farmers, the railroad, logging...it's how most of them started out. We still have an operating old time sawmill right here in "downtown Belleplain" operated by the Champion family. The old Tarkiln Farms are split up and I think the Allen family owns a large 'pick your own' farm out off of Tarkiln Road, behind Tuckahoe Nurseries. The Germanios were, and still are, farming but not as much. Our small town is also Pinelands Protected (which can be a good thing or a bad thing), which will tend to inhibit large development. Oh man, I promise I will climb off my soapbox right now...but can you tell the preservation of small town America is one of my beliefs?

Heather in SJ

 

[long-a-coming]

Heather,
I think there should be more people speaking up about this topic. Preach on!!
Drive along Rt. 70 in Medford you can see development is winning over, It sucks!!!! Belleplain sounds really cool! A old timey place worth fighting for.

 

[woodjin]

Ahhh, kindred spirits. I grew up in Lincroft NJ (Monmouth county), It was mostly a farming community. I grew up on 5 acres with about a mile and a 1/2 square woods behind the property. It seemed huge to me then, and I spent nearly every possible moment as a kid out there. Everybody knew everybody in town and there was a close knit sense of community. When I was 12 developers moved in and within a few years it was all gone. From what I understand it is now all 1/4 acre expensive homes and corporate/industrial parks. I looked it up on terraserver and couldn't even recognize my old house. I lived there till I was 23. That was only 11 years ago.

I know what you mean by Route 70 in Medford, it is spreading eastward too, a large development in south hampton is going up. I think it is called "The Grand" There has been some recent developement on route 72 in Chatsworth and Magnolia rd also (south of ongs hat).

Jeff

 

[woodjin]

I hope my last post didn't bring anybody down. The situation in Lincroft was far different than down here. Lincroft never stood a chance. The interest for preservation in the pine barrens is huge. There is considerable pressure from developers and, unfortunitly, there are political forces working against it as well ($). But look how much the pine barrens has endured so far...Industry (bog iron, paper, lumber, glass), proposed jet ports (northern plains, oswego), water exportation (Wharton) and countless failed developments. Look at how quickly the woods has reclaimed all the old towns and furances we visit. I was in Chatam, north Jersey, this past summer and saw three pineland licence plates. There is still some hope down here.

Jeff