More than a few residents on the north side of Verona wrote us yesterday to complain that they were woken up over night by the sound of low-flying helicopters. It turns out that they can blame their sleeplessness on Essex County.
The choppers were taking infrared pictures of the deer population at the Hilltop to help the county determine whether it needs to continue its annual deer hunt there. The Hilltop was the focus of this year’s deer program and 102 deer and 52 unborn deer taken from Hilltop, compared to 50 deer and 29 unborn deer at South Mountain and 23 deer and 18 unborn deer at Eagle Rock.
A spokesman said yesterday that the county does not yet know when the results of the survey will be made public. The county will also be observing the deer herd during daylight hours.
this would have been a good time to use the nixel alert system rather than alarm the town thinking a manhunt was taking place!
WOW! Thanks for finding that out for us. Now we have to write to Joe DeVincenzo and tell him to find a better way to spend our tax dollars.
Did I hear that there was $80,000 paid in over time to the county police? For a total of 274 deer? Okay….
Thanks for solving the mystery! I also figured it was crime related. Maybe infrared cameras work better at 3am instead of something more reasonable, like 10pm.
Lorraine, we have asked the county to verify that spending.
We’ll get back to you.