When Deer Become a Nuisance

By Tom Remington
Managing Editor

 

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I have been reading countless stories of late from all parts of the United States about towns and cities having problems with too many deer within those town and city limits. I have to ask myself, how many is too many? I think that is a good question and one I’m not sure I can answer or am even qualified to answer.

First of all, I am not a wildlife biologist. I am nothing more than a citizen of the United States who grew up in Maine. I read and I write and I gather information that is available to me and from there I formulate thoughts and ideas. I believe this is what most reasonably intelligent people do. So, I have been reading many accounts of unruly, disease ridden, aggressive and very hungry deer invading the cities and towns all over America.

Why are they doing this? As I understand, it is because of several reasons. One is these animals feel safe from their natural predators in your back yard. Two, you have prepared them quite a feast of flowers, shrubs, luscious green grass with clover and many feed the deer on a regular basis with grains and salt licks.

Urban sprawl can attribute to a great part this meshing together of man and wildlife. In our efforts to control over populated human centers, we have written ordinances that provide for green space, setbacks and minimum lot sizes. With this has come the rapid expansion of homes and small businesses, even strip malls, all throughout our country. With each successive home or building that goes up, we are encroaching on the woods and wild lands these animals have known as home. In a short amount of time, there is a new house on every conceivable piece of land big enough to legally build on.

Many, who move to these “country” settings, enjoy sharing their space with these wild creatures. How pleasant is it to look out through that extra large pane of “intelligent” glass, protecting you from harmful ultra-violet rays and at the same time trapping heated or cooled air in while locking unwanted air out, and view a wild animal?

Then the unforeseen happens. You wake up one morning and look outside from your sterile environment and you notice your favorite clump of daisies is gone and half of all your shrubs have been mowed down to the ground.

In our love to keep as much green as we can, our sub-divisions require that we keep a certain percentage of “green space”. This includes trees and undergrowth. Don’t get me wrong. I think keeping this green space is fine but the consequences we are seeing, is becoming a problem to some, if not most, people.

Deer are the culprits. They live in the woods and for the most part, depending upon which part of the country you live, they have enough food to roam and forage for. At times, certain foods they like become in short supply due to the effects of Mother Nature and deer have to roam further for food.

Winters can be harsh on deer population and in certain areas there are lots of predators for the deer. In the northeast, there are coyote that will kill deer when they get hungry enough. Coyote, for example, are very shy of humans and generally will not venture too close to where we live. They will often visit some local farms and help themselves to some chickens if they can get at them.

When driven and scared by these natural predators, deer will move to areas where they feel safe – your back yard. They have also learned that they don’t have to travel very far for some good food – your back yard.

The problems that begin to mount from this migration are numerous – if you see these are serious problems. When deer find your back yard, that doesn’t mean they are going to stay in your back yard. Why would they limit their fun and food to just your yard when Fred across the street has a different variety of take-out? The problem that occurs is deer and car collisions. With too many deer around, the deer-automobile don’t mix well and collisions happen – tragically too I might add.

With newfound friends and plenty to eat, deer will become quite comfortable in their new surroundings and can then become a bit territorial. Just because deer have become suburbanites, doesn’t mean they have given up the natural ways. Female deer will fight to protect their young if necessary and sometimes you might venture into the back yard to chase off that young buck who loves your pansies and you find yourself high-footing it for the back door because you are the one being chased.

There are biological issues that come into play as well. With growing numbers of deer concentrated into small areas, the risk of spreading disease becomes a factor. Chronic Wasting Disease is one that is known to most easily spread among deer that are herded up in large quantities. CWD cannot be transmitted to humans. This disease is similar to the mad cow disease we have all heard so much about.

Deer can carry ticks and the ticks can get into our houses via our pets or ourselves.

So, what do we do? There are several options available and what we do most often times is determined my economics more than what is best or most practical. Many methods have been tried from trapping them and transporting them to other places, to contraception and sterilization, to hunting them. Most authorities that have dealt with this for years, say that no matter what method you try, elimination of numbers is a must.

In Lakeway, Texas the problem has gotten to the point where there is one auto-deer collision each day. This town hired a trapper to come in and capture the deer and transport them to Mexico and local deer farms. Eventually, he ended up just taking them to the butcher.

Town after town across America is faced with the same dilemma and town after town can’t decide what to do about it. The solution often times seems simple. Most believe a controlled archery hunt by skilled bowmen would be effective in reducing numbers in densely populated areas. Others think that is inhumane. And so begins the debate.

In extreme cases of over-protection of these animals, results are so inhumane it is incomprehensible how self-proclaimed animal rights activists can sit by and watch starving, disease-ridden deer suffer by simply doing nothing.

Keeping our wildlife healthy is the number one goal of fish and game departments all across America. Doing nothing about this problem will not make it go away. We, as selfish humans, have chosen the path we want to take – at least for now. We want our houses built in the lands occupied by animals and it now becomes more of our responsibility to ensure these animals are kept healthy.

I am not a fan at all of the Humane Society of the United States or any other animal rights groups because they are way out of balance with reality. The only way to simply just allow animals to live without any wildlife management programs to control numbers would be to remove man from this earth. I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon.

God created the heavens and the earth as he did the animals that roam it – humans included. He gave man dominion over the animals and for the most part we have done a pretty good job protecting God’s creatures. But, it is our own encroachment on the wildlife that is threatening it. As with many things, it comes down to finding a balance. Sometimes our decisions are tough ones but they are the right ones.

Towns across America are struggling with this problem and what to do about it. In Helena, Montana there is a problem with aggressive deer taking over the back yards of the residents there. There are ongoing arguments and indecision as to what should be done.

In Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Humane Society has gotten into this battle and with the very wealthy residents who live there, this could prove to be a long battle. The deer committee in that town formulated a plan to bring in bow hunters to reduce the numbers. One dissenting member of the committee is fighting the decision and like a parasite, the HSUS has jumped on the bandwagon not really caring about the welfare of the residents of Ridgefield but to promote their agenda of banning hunting everywhere in the United States.

So, I ask you. How many deer are too many? This is a question that is being left up to the state fish and game departments, town officials and town residents throughout much of the United States. In towns in rural settings across Maine there isn’t a problem. There are some places in the southern part of the state where problems are beginning to surface and our state’s Fish and Game department has started an expanded archery program in those key areas in an attempt to keep the numbers controllable. Let’s hope it works.

When it is determined how many deer are too many, what do we do about solving the problem? That too is the decision of state and local officials but doing nothing is not a viable option. It has proven itself time and again that the end result is long time needless suffering of deer.

Programs that have been tried, some with success some without, can be implemented depending upon how much money residents feel they can spend. The bottom line is, we have to reduce the numbers to be able to maintain a healthy herd that is free of disease, while at the same time striking a balance in sharing the land between man and beast.