Deer And Elk Come To Town

Dr. Dave Samuel

Whitetail populations are at record high levels throughout their range. One measure of population increase is buck harvests. Research has shown that for 13 eastern states bucks harvests rose by 164% from 1983-1992. True, more liberal bag limits have led to some of this increase, but spiraling deer numbers are also responsible. The increase in deer herds has been accompanied by a boom in home building, suburbs built in deer habitat. This has led to encounters between wildlife and man; shrubs and gardens eaten, animal-auto collisions, and Lyme disease problems. Citizens respond to these problems in varying ways. Some build electric and non-electric fences while others try repellents. Still other citizens compound the problem by feeding deer in suburbs.

This scenario has become common throughout the country and communities solve these over-abundant wildlife problems in different ways. West of Denver is the suburb of Evergreen composed of 24,000 people. Here elk numbers have increased by two-thirds over the past twenty years. This has led to property damage and auto accidents and many complaints from citizens. Even so, only 33% of the citizens worried about these problems and only 1% felt the elk were a nuisance and did not want to see them at all. Across country in the small community of Cayuga Heights, NY whitetails are causing similar problems. But here the citizens were much more upset with the deer. More than 50% of the citizens worried about deer-related problems and 34% felt they were a nuisance and did not enjoy deer at all.

In Polk County Iowa, bowhunting was introduced to thin deer herds starting in 1998. Numbers have decreased and citizen complains have also dropped. Willie Suchy, a wildlife biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources noted that "if we hadn't had the controlled bowhunts, we might be looking at 3,000 deer (instead of 1,400). A recent paper by the Human Dimensions Research Unit of Cornell University outlined this difference in acceptance of deer and elk problems in the two communities. In Evergreen 32% of the citizens wanted a decrease in elk numbers, while 81% of Cayuga Heights citizens wanted deer numbers decreased. There were other differences. The Colorado community wanted the state wildlife agency to make final decisions "with the involvement of citizens at every step" while the New York town wanted citizens to make all decisions on management with the agency only supplying scientific data. While hunting would seem like an obvious and economically sound choice for many of these problems, it is apparent that each community is different. Wildlife managers must understand the complexities of each community as they work with citizens to help solve overabundant wildlife problems.

"There are currently no contraceptive products available for commercial use in wildlife." They also list all the reasons deer contraception won't work, what tests and approvals the feds have to do before any drugs will be used (and these are expensive and long), why drug manufacturers won't spend the money to get these drugs on line for use on deer, etc. Another quote........"In reality it is doubtful if the cost or efficiency of delivery for contraceptive techniques would allow their use on free-ranging game populations, because of the practical limitations of treating a large enough portion of a free-ranging population to eliminate reproduction and to offset recruitment from immigration." ie.. they won't work. The animal rights folks have continued to tell citizens that contraception is the answer especially in urban areas......when in reality it will never be so. And the professionals have now made that clear. Hunters need this information to use in their local communities.