...suburban bow hunting into a well-organized network of bowhunters, wildlife mangers and individual and corporate landowners eager to thin burgeoning deer herds. It’s been a tough road, but the pieces are falling into place.

“When I started doing this, I had a hard time convincing the state game department and prospective landowners that we could serve a real purpose for the problems local counties were facing. The first question the game department asked was whether I was trying to make money by charging landowners a fee to hunt on their land,” he recalls. 

In fact, not only has he set up his organization as a non-profit entity, but Huppert and fellow corporation officers have also spent thousands of their own dollars on attorney fees, liability insurance and various office expenses. Members are charged a nominal annual fee, but it’s not even enough to cover expenses.

Now, things are moving quickly and Huppert is solving two problems at once. He’s opening up new hunting opportunities in a region where finding a place to hunt is extremely difficult. And he’s helping solve the problems associated with suburban deer. 

To ease landowner’s fears, Huppert requires all of his hunters to meet high standards, including a shooting proficiency test that requires archers to place two out of three broadheads inside a 6-inch circle at 20 and 30 yards. “That knocks a lot of people out right there,” he says. Prospective hunters must also take an International Bowhunter Education Program course and an orientation that tells hunters about SWMNV and its goals. They must also interview with the outfit’s board of directors.

“We ask ethical questions and we ask them about blood trailing experience and other questions related to hunting in an urban setting. Hunters must have also harvested at least three big game animals with a bow and we require a photo or a big game check card as proof,” he says. 

Huppert’s outfit has not only gained access to a couple dozen individual homeowner properties, but he’s also gotten into a 1,100-acre parcel of unbroken land in Loudoun County, which borders Fairfax to the northwest, that is slated for a major residential development. What was once a largely rural county is fast becoming a sea of strip malls and housing developments, and the deer problem is becoming a major headache for Loudoun’s county managers. According to Huppert, the developer took a proactive approach to dealing with the deer that would cause problems after the bulldozers moved in to start clearing trees. SWMNV’s 40 members have exclusive access to the property and may stay on after the development is completed to keep the deer in check.

When Loudoun County bureaucrats learned that SWMNV had been hunting this property for several months, they approached Huppert with interest in a similar program on other parcels of land slated for development. “The county is considering making deer management mandatory before a developer starts clearing land. They liked the idea that we had been hunting this one piece of land for quite some time and they never knew we were there,” he says. 

Fairfax County, where Huppert expends much of his energy, is still having a hard time deciding to let SWMNV onto county-owned park property, despite the continued rise in the deer population and the habitat degradation that results. 

“We’ve got strong support from the county parks and animal control departments, but the county commissioners still can’t make up their minds,” he says. 

There are at least two rabid anti-hunters on Fairfax’s board of commissioners, and other leaders have bowed to the wishes of a vocal minority opposed to any type of lethal deer management. The county has gone ahead with managed shotgun hunts in a handful of parks, but the issue of a broader hunting program is still up in the air. So is SWMNV’s involvement, but Huppert is working diligently to convince the county commissioners that his hunters can play a positive, hassle-free role in deer management.

Despite the prospects of taking some huge bucks — bucks that probably have never been subject to any hunting pressure — Huppert says his organization’s first goal is to reduce the deer population on a piece of property. His hunters are allowed to take antlered deer during the regular hunting season, but he stresses that they take at least a few does first. 

“That was one of the initial complaints I heard from homeowners. They would have a guy hunt their property, but the hunter would only target the biggest bucks or he would end up not taking anything at all,” he adds. “We will remove one of our hunters from a property and put in somebody else if he isn’t doing his job.” 

Ultimately, Huppert would like to see developers and county commissioners use groups like his to help solve the ongoing problem, not just here, but in suburban areas all over the country. That may happen. 

“We’ve had several people contact us about starting a group like ours where they live. I tell them to go to our website – www.swmnv.com -- and use anything on it they would like,” he says.