Oh Deer! - A look at deer overpopulation and what can be done

I am certainly not a deer population expert, nor am I an employee of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).

I am an avid hunter and outdoorsman who lives in Mentor, Ohio, and have to leave the city limits to hunt.

I have done my share of research on deer population, movement and habitat management and have also aided others, in a limited role, setting up and maintaining habitats that both sustain and attract healthy deer.  

Living in Mentor, it is not hard to see the problems that exist in the deer population; an argument that has been going on in the Mentor City Council for more than a year.

During the , the Council basically got to the place where they agree we have a problem. Deer herd surveys show a conservative estimate of 33 deer per square mile where 10-15 is healthy. The ODNR officer, Jason Keller, added the final piece to the puzzle by providing detail on the problem overpopulation presents.

In any city facing high and potentially unhealthy deer populations, a deer management program should be instituted and sustained. This is a program that operates if the population is high or low.

If the population is high, this program is set off by a trigger of meeting several criterion.  Mentor currently has no such deer management plan.  

There are generally four criterion for this trigger: 

1.  Is there a Danger to Human Health of Life?

Recent surveys in Mentor indicated that we were among the highest in northeast Ohio from 2007-2009 with over , the next closest city was Strongsville at 180. Coyote populations are also on the rise threatening smaller animal populations and people. 

2.  Health of the Deer Herd 

ODNR officer Jason Keller confirmed that the deer are undersized potentially due to malnutrition.  Deer are searching for food during the time of year when food should be plentiful to a normal sized deer herd.

I have had a deer walk up to my back deck, close to a lit fire pit to take seeds from my bird feeder while I was sitting at the table on my deck eating dinner. During the summer there should be no reason a deer is scouring for food to the extent it would take such a risk.  

3. Damage to Natural Plant Life

It’s hard to have a garden in Mentor. Not only that, but the undergrowth of the city’s wooded areas are decimated.

indicated that a healthy wooded area would permit 10-15 yards of visibility where forests in Mentor permit 100 yards of visibility.  

4.  Residents Opinions

I don’t think there are any of us in Mentor who feel deer are not a problem or that they are at least not over populated. Deer bed down in my yard and can be seen virtually every day.

During last weeks city council meeting, , Kenneth Filipiak talked about the large financial cost to the animal related crashes. According to Filipiak’s figures, these crashes cost residents $784,000 in damage from 07-09. 

So what do we do about it?  The first step has already been taken by the city council in a herd survey which was done by Mentor last year. It confirmed that the populations are too high and that we need to understand the damage that this causes. Now that we know more specifically what the population is, there are several possible courses of action.   

1.  Feeding restrictions

Supplemental feeding both encourages population growth and makes deer dependent on humans as well as promotes the spread of disease. The council has asked for residents not to feed deer, but there should be restrictions on corn sites, automatic deer feeders, and other feeding structures.  

2.  Trapping

My father-in-law told me the other day, “Box them up and send them to us in PA.”  History has shown that large scale trap-and-transfer programs are both labor-intensive, expensive, and require release spots capable of absorbing large numbers of relocated deer.

Deer are also subject to injury during handling and a small percentage of deer are lost during this due to trauma. 

3.  Sterilization / Contraception

This has already been brought up in the and has been deemed as not a “viable option” by Councilman-At-Large Ray Kirchner. There are still a lot of concerns with these chemicals entering the food chain (if the deer relocates itself and is hunted).

To date there has only been one drug approved by both the FDA and the EPA for use of sterilization, Gonacon. The state of Maryland just approved its use and are now seeing the complications of logistics as the methods for injecting deer will cost the state of Maryland $1000 per deer.

This is a state that has a $300 million dollar revenue from the hunting industry (permits, tags, programs). On top of this, Gonacon is 80% effective; so 20% of the deer are simply absorbing cost with no ecological impact.  

4.  Hunting

Hunting has long been viewed as the most effective and efficient method of deer population control. Effective in the number of hunters culling the herd and efficient because of its low cost as hunters do all the work; from culling the herd to absorbing the post hunt costs of deer processing and storage.

In a city like Mentor however, cost may not be low. In areas where buildings and city limits are tight, communities generally hire companies to bait deer at night to hunt them, the meat is then donated to soup kitchens.

The cost of both paying the company and processing all the deer adds up. Solon has used this method for many years. They spent $782,925 from 2005 to 2009 on their deer culling program. A cost of roughly $400 per deer.

This is not an inexpensive method, of course, and residents have to be prepared for deer culling company employees to be walking through their property at night with large weapons.  

Solon is starting to wonder if allowing primitive weapons like compound bow hunting is a more viable option. Many other cities across the country have followed a program that permits land owners to bring in bow hunters who have been qualified with the local police department to ensure they are responsible operators of their compound bows.

The thought is that it is not only cheap and effective, but can bring revenue to a city; as hunters pay the city to cull a deer herd instead of tax payers paying someone else to do it. 

In the small community of Fox Chapel Borough, located nine miles northeast of Pittsburgh, the 5,600 residents living on 5,400 acres faced a similar problem.  As with most small communities with tight infrastructure, early sentiment was that the population supported the fact that the deer population was a problem but a majority opposed a hunting program within those tight limits.

A conclusion was reached that some form of hunting was the only viable alternative, but the concept did not sit well with residents as pre-program surveys were issued to show 65% of residents did not like the controlled hunting option.    

A plan was formed where local residents with appropriate hunting space could allow a qualified hunter onto their property.  Hunting candidates would fill out a detailed application with an application fee, and receive a background check as well as submit to proficiency testing with a bow.

The hunters would then agree to use only bow, would only hunt from tree-stands and would shoot a doe before shooting a buck. They would also agree to remove the deer immediately from within borough limits before field dressing it. The result of this program was a lower deer population and post hunting surveys that showed 72% of the residents favoring the program.   

The advantages of this program:

1. Only residents with appropriate space who want to allow hunters on it would have their property hunted.  City owned property and other private property can be used and controlled and it may only require 5-10 land owners to volunteer to begin to see major changes in the deer population.
2. Only those qualified to hunt are actually out culling the herd, eliminating the myth that anyone with a bow and a dream will be wondering the woods looking for deer.  Not only would the hunters qualify and check in, but would have a background check and pay a fee. 
3. No revenue is lost, the application fees pay for any costs associated with police time and monitoring. 
4. Hunters agree to take a doe first, each deer is checked and this eliminates rack only hunters from applying.  
5. Tree stand only hunting is safe, as all shots are at a downward direction preventing arrows from flying long distances.  There are also extremely limited accidents due to weapon discharge from tree stands because the hunters visibility is drastically increased 20’ in the air.  

It is quite possible that Mentor would benefit greatly from this type of program.  It’s hunting residents would also be able to help with a problem the city is facing.

You could take this program a step further and make each applicant prove previous hunting success, limit applicants to Mentor residents only, permit hunters to keep the meat only and not the racks, and/or only permit shots within 25 yards.   

Lake Metroparks controlled hunting program has been well received, and the results of that program should be promising, but they own so much land in Lake County it makes it difficult to compare what they are doing to areas in Mentor.

The recent experiment was in Madison where deer do a lot of damage to vineyards and other crops and then are bouncing across the road to Metroparks areas where hunting is prohibited.

Luckily, Madison is much more open so the population is hunted and controlled by other land owners. Mentor does not have that luxury. I think it’s time to give the residents that luxury and create a program that is smart, safe, effective and cheap.  

The next steps are to start small, contact other cities that have done similar programs, survey residents who have more than 3 acres of land in Mentor to gauge interest in a qualified controlled hunting program.

There are some council members who don’t want to cull the herd, but in this economy it is not logical to waste time, effort and resources on relocation, contraception or mass culling by an expensive company.

Keep it simple, allow the hunters of Mentor to help the city, fill their freezers, and keep the beauty that is Mentor’s wild areas. 

Other Research from: 

Gordon, W. B. (2007). Bucks In The Hood. Whitetail Wisdom, 1(1), 27-31.