In the end I don't think this has anything to do with 'liberalism', &c. These sorts of questions all too often end up being parodied (or becoming parodies) from both side. It's the 'redneck, thick-skulled NRA gun-toting hunters' on the one side and the 'know-nothing, want-to-take-away-our-rights, do-gooding, zealous liberals' on the other. I think it's pretty obvious that neither of these cariacatures is true (at least not most of the time...

) [side note: unfortunately, I've observed that voting tends to break down along these lines - e.g., people will vote for the Republicans primarily on the issue of guns, ignoring the fact that the Repub. tax-programmes only benefit the wealthiest 10% (or less) of the nation. or people will vote for the Democrats based solely on birth-control or whatever; personally I think that there isn't much difference between the two parties and people should start voting for other parties all-together...end of note

]
Back to the PET-people and deer in New Jersey - I still don't understand exactly what the Dept. of the Environment could be doing to increase the population...unless they're raising deer in captivity and releasing them into the wild. If they're providing some additional food for the winter, that may well be under pressure from other 'zealous animal-rights groups' (who I have no particular love for - they like to send envelopes with razor blades in them to research institutes, like my dept. for instance, even though we don't do any testing on animals (only people) - they should at least check their facts first....) to do so.
My understanding was essential what Walosi said, that the natural environment has been disturbed by human settlement so that the deer are no longer kept in check by 'natural' predators. So if population weren't controlled via hunting, the deer population would explode (which is exactly what the suit is accusing the hunters as causing); unless some other method of control (deer concentration camps?) were adopted....
Won't that suit just be thrown out of court on 'lack of grounds' or whatever/
B.