Sharpshooting plan for Rock Creek Park spurs more protests Officers began blocking off parts of the park as evening descended. Sharpshooters, stationed in undisclosed locales from just north of the National Zoo to 16th and Oregon Avenue NW, planned to be elevated in lifts, near areas where bait was set up to seduce hungry deer, said Carol Johnson, a Park Service spokeswoman. They planned to harvest between 60 and 70 deer by Saturday. Johnson said the agency quickly planned the hunts after a March 14 ruling that re-affirmed their authority to kill the native species, if it was in the best interest of the park. The defeat was a blow to a spirited group of neighbors and animal rights activists, who view the action as barbaric and unnecessary. Carol Grunewald, a Chevy Chase resident who is the lead plaintiff in the case, said she and other disgruntled residents had been strategizing next steps to prevent deer shootings in the fall, as the agency indicated they were unlikely to hunt deer in any other time than autumn and winter. So Grunewald was dismayed to read that the Park Service announced its first operation on Wednesday, a week after the vernal equinox, a mere eight hours before shooting was set to begin. She tried to organize a quick vigil over the next three days, which inevitably provided some difficulty. For the organizers who were out Thursday, the protest was almost as much about the Park Service's treatment of humans as it was about the animals. "It shows so little respect for the community to do this during Passover and Easter weekend, when everyone in Washington is leaving town,"" said Grunewald, who struggled to find people to join the protest on Military Road and Oregon Ave. Activists said as many as 30 people joined them throughout Thursday. But only about eight were still out on Thursday night. Holding signs with slogans such as "Shame on NPS" and "Don't Kill the Deer," they chanted, "Birth control! Not bullets! Protests to sharpshooting are as old sharpshooting itself. According to Fairfax County Biologist Victoria Monroe, protesters wore deer suits the day Mason Neck State Park started deer operations in 1993. Still, the actions have taken on a new energy recently as the number of deer continues to swell and parks departments approve shooting deer more and more in urban areas. A quarter of residents expressed disapproval of Montgomery's plan to expand its deer-hunting program in suburban Chevy Chase, an effort in February that led to the killing of 30 deer.