XX78
03-22-2004, 03:19 PM
Deer, humans battling for space in the suburbs
03/21/04
Michael O'Malley
Plain Dealer Reporter
David Zavodny, sitting in his pickup truck at a traffic light near the Mustard Seed grocery store in Solon, watched in amazement as a herd of whitetail deer galloped through the intersection.
On that night last December, it was unseasonably warm, so the driver's side window on the big Silverado was rolled down and Zavodny could hear the clickety-clack of hooves on the hard pavement. When the last whitetail passed, Zavodny eased his foot off the brake, but he barely rolled six feet when - BAM! - a big antlered buck caved in the driver's door.
"The horns came right into the truck and I could feel the deer's breath on my neck," he said. "I said to myself, 'What just happened?' "
What had just happened was yet another clash between animal and human in a place where, like so many growing suburbs across the nation, nature loses ground to civilization every day.
Unchecked sprawl is eating up America's farms, fields and forests. And as the habitat of the whitetail disappears, the highly adaptable animal becomes part of our suburban landscape, jumping highway guardrails, darting across cul-de-sacs and eating its way from backyard vegetable garden to front yard flower bed.
Suburbanites try various methods to keep them away electric fences, wire mesh, trip alarms, garlic and canned coyote urine but nothing seems to repel these voracious herbivores that individually can eat seven pounds of food a day, or more than a ton a year.
As a species, deer reproduce rapidly. And those living in outer-ring suburbs like Solon are free of natural predators and hunters, so their numbers grow exponentially.
The biggest killer of suburban deer is the automobile.
But the fleet-footed animals can become a danger themselves as they herd and forage through subdivisions and across median strips, posing a hazard to motorists who often spot the elusive beasts too late to avoid collisions.
Solon police say the number of deer-vehicle collisions in the city between 1993 and 2002 averaged about 112 a year. Last year, they spiked to 175.
Nationally, the insurance industry estimates there are 1.5 million deer-motor vehicle crashes each year, killing 160 to 200 people and injuring 16,000. The estimated annual damage is $1 billion.
In Ohio, the latest available data shows an estimated $61 million in deer crash claims in 2002.
Tom Uhl, owner of Solon Auto Body on Old South Miles Road, sees lots of blood-spattered smashes and dents. He repairs about 30 deer-damaged vehicles a year, including cruisers from area police departments.
"You drop 300 pounds on a hood or a windshield, it'll do a lot of damage," said Uhl. "We had to put a whole new roof on a Caravan."
Uhl, 30, who grew up in Solon, said that when he was a kid, he rarely saw a deer in town. Now, herds of 15 to 20 head live in wooded lots along suburban back yards. A big 14-point buck, he said, lives behind his parents' house.
"The whole city is filled with them," said Councilwoman Susan Drucker, who regularly gets complaints about deer jumping onto backyard decks and herds grazing on lawns.
Due to rapid real estate development in recent years, the one-time rural town faces a complex problem, not easily solved.
Taking stock
of deer population
To get an exact deer count, the city is paying a pilot $20,000 to fly over at night with infrared cameras that will pick up sizes and locations of deer clusters. The flying is still under way, with results expected next month.
Once a number is established, the city can apply to the Ohio Division of Wildlife for a permit to kill some of the deer.
Solon officials are considering sharpshooting or using hand-held bolt guns that require netting the animals and driving retractable steel rods through their heads. Either method will surely draw protests and possibly lawsuits from animal rights groups.
Discussions of bolt guns in City Council last June drew protests, causing city officials to hold off on killing deer. But in January, in the wake of heavy deer complaints, council resumed the talk.
"There is no pleasant way to do this," said Police Chief Wayne Godzich. "I wish there was."
State wildlife officials say that prior to hunting season, 15 to 30 deer per square mile is generally considered a balanced density in Ohio's rural eastern counties. Hunting in those counties culls a third of the population each year.
Farmers and hunters are relatively happy with that ratio, they say. And herds are healthier with fewer mouths to feed.
Through controlled hunting, the state in recent years has kept that balance. But in places such as Greater Cleveland, where hunting is prohibited and wild wolves don't exist, deer have become a problem.
Besides landscape damage and car collisions, city and park officials worry about Lyme disease, a debilitating condition carried by ticks that live on deer.
Each year for the last six years, Cleveland Metroparks have dispatched sharpshooters to thin herds throughout the 20,000-acre preserve.
Park officials say that too many deer upset the ecology because they eat at a rate that won't allow forests to regenerate. Hardwood trees and certain flowers native to some areas have nearly disappeared, they say.
The park system's Bedford reservation was severely damaged seven years ago because the estimated deer density reached 110 per square mile, officials said. In the wake of sharpshooting, Bedford deer dropped to an estimated 30 per square mile in 2003.
Animal rights activists argue that killing deer does not effectively thin herds because those left living have a greater food source, making them stronger, more sexually active and able to produce more offspring.
They call for nonlethal methods such as birth control, though that approach can be costly and labor intensive. The deer has to be caught, tranquilized and injected with a birth control drug. Such drugs are still undergoing tests and not yet proven effective.
Biologist, methodology
come under attack
The Metroparks this year hired a biologist to test contraceptives on deer in the Ohio & Erie Canal reservation.
But the biologist, Tony DeNicola of Connecticut, is also a sharpshooter-for-hire, so he is tagged as an enemy by animal rights groups nationwide.
"He makes more money killing deer than sterilizing them," said Steve Hindi of the Illinois-based animal rights group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, also known as SHARK.
Hindi accused sharpshooters in the Summit County park system last month of animal cruelty after his group filmed a deer kill with hidden cameras. Footage shows deer dropping to the ground under gunfire and then men putting plastic bags over the animals' heads while they appeared to be still alive, kicking and twisting.
Despite such violence, most wildlife officials say sharpshooting is the quickest, cheapest and easiest way to thin herds.
It's used at Gettysburg National Military Park, where deer herds 10 years ago were so heavy, they destroyed farm fields and orchards vital to the historic landscape.
The federal government requires an environmental impact study before it allows deer killing on parklands.
In the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, that study is expected to begin this year and take two years to complete.
Park biologist Lisa Petit estimates deer density in the 33,000-acre national preserve is as low as 40 per square mile and as high as 130 per square mile.
"It's simple in the animal world," she said. "If you have lots of food and nothing is eating you, you have more offspring and you increase your numbers."
Whitetails in the Eastern United States have steadily increased over the last half-century. But there was a time when the graceful animal was on the brink of extinction.
Throughout the 19th century, uncontrolled hunting and cutting forests for farmland nearly wiped out the American whitetail. By 1903, there were no deer in Ohio.
In the early 1920s, the state brought whitetails from other areas to breed and restock.
For two decades, they roamed and populated. In 1943, Ohio opened its first deer-hunting season.
For the next 40 years, hunters outnumbered deer nationwide. But by the mid-1980s, deer paced ahead. And between 1988 and 1999, they were reproducing at the rate of 1 million a year.
Today, Ohio is home to an estimated 680,000 deer and 450,000 deer hunters. Nationwide, there are 33 million deer and 13 million hunters.
Hunters usually stalk bucks in a quest for antler trophies, contributing to the population explosion because a few bucks can impregnate many does.
In the last few years, the growth rate of deer has begun to decline, due partly to state management programs that encourage hunters to kill more does, said Brian Murphy of Quality Deer Management Association, a nonprofit group in Georgia that advises hunters, farmers and states on deer control.
In 1999, he said, American hunters for the first time killed more does than antlered bucks.
"Deer need hunters as much as hunters need deer," said Murphy. "This wild, beautiful animal evolved as prey for the saber-toothed tiger and it has adapted as prey. It wouldn't be the magical, elusive animal that we now have without that pressure.
"But we have effectively eliminated its predators in North America. And now humans have to play that role. Without hunting, the wolf becomes the dog, the deer becomes the cow."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
momalley@plaind.com, 216-999-4893
© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
03/21/04
Michael O'Malley
Plain Dealer Reporter
David Zavodny, sitting in his pickup truck at a traffic light near the Mustard Seed grocery store in Solon, watched in amazement as a herd of whitetail deer galloped through the intersection.
On that night last December, it was unseasonably warm, so the driver's side window on the big Silverado was rolled down and Zavodny could hear the clickety-clack of hooves on the hard pavement. When the last whitetail passed, Zavodny eased his foot off the brake, but he barely rolled six feet when - BAM! - a big antlered buck caved in the driver's door.
"The horns came right into the truck and I could feel the deer's breath on my neck," he said. "I said to myself, 'What just happened?' "
What had just happened was yet another clash between animal and human in a place where, like so many growing suburbs across the nation, nature loses ground to civilization every day.
Unchecked sprawl is eating up America's farms, fields and forests. And as the habitat of the whitetail disappears, the highly adaptable animal becomes part of our suburban landscape, jumping highway guardrails, darting across cul-de-sacs and eating its way from backyard vegetable garden to front yard flower bed.
Suburbanites try various methods to keep them away electric fences, wire mesh, trip alarms, garlic and canned coyote urine but nothing seems to repel these voracious herbivores that individually can eat seven pounds of food a day, or more than a ton a year.
As a species, deer reproduce rapidly. And those living in outer-ring suburbs like Solon are free of natural predators and hunters, so their numbers grow exponentially.
The biggest killer of suburban deer is the automobile.
But the fleet-footed animals can become a danger themselves as they herd and forage through subdivisions and across median strips, posing a hazard to motorists who often spot the elusive beasts too late to avoid collisions.
Solon police say the number of deer-vehicle collisions in the city between 1993 and 2002 averaged about 112 a year. Last year, they spiked to 175.
Nationally, the insurance industry estimates there are 1.5 million deer-motor vehicle crashes each year, killing 160 to 200 people and injuring 16,000. The estimated annual damage is $1 billion.
In Ohio, the latest available data shows an estimated $61 million in deer crash claims in 2002.
Tom Uhl, owner of Solon Auto Body on Old South Miles Road, sees lots of blood-spattered smashes and dents. He repairs about 30 deer-damaged vehicles a year, including cruisers from area police departments.
"You drop 300 pounds on a hood or a windshield, it'll do a lot of damage," said Uhl. "We had to put a whole new roof on a Caravan."
Uhl, 30, who grew up in Solon, said that when he was a kid, he rarely saw a deer in town. Now, herds of 15 to 20 head live in wooded lots along suburban back yards. A big 14-point buck, he said, lives behind his parents' house.
"The whole city is filled with them," said Councilwoman Susan Drucker, who regularly gets complaints about deer jumping onto backyard decks and herds grazing on lawns.
Due to rapid real estate development in recent years, the one-time rural town faces a complex problem, not easily solved.
Taking stock
of deer population
To get an exact deer count, the city is paying a pilot $20,000 to fly over at night with infrared cameras that will pick up sizes and locations of deer clusters. The flying is still under way, with results expected next month.
Once a number is established, the city can apply to the Ohio Division of Wildlife for a permit to kill some of the deer.
Solon officials are considering sharpshooting or using hand-held bolt guns that require netting the animals and driving retractable steel rods through their heads. Either method will surely draw protests and possibly lawsuits from animal rights groups.
Discussions of bolt guns in City Council last June drew protests, causing city officials to hold off on killing deer. But in January, in the wake of heavy deer complaints, council resumed the talk.
"There is no pleasant way to do this," said Police Chief Wayne Godzich. "I wish there was."
State wildlife officials say that prior to hunting season, 15 to 30 deer per square mile is generally considered a balanced density in Ohio's rural eastern counties. Hunting in those counties culls a third of the population each year.
Farmers and hunters are relatively happy with that ratio, they say. And herds are healthier with fewer mouths to feed.
Through controlled hunting, the state in recent years has kept that balance. But in places such as Greater Cleveland, where hunting is prohibited and wild wolves don't exist, deer have become a problem.
Besides landscape damage and car collisions, city and park officials worry about Lyme disease, a debilitating condition carried by ticks that live on deer.
Each year for the last six years, Cleveland Metroparks have dispatched sharpshooters to thin herds throughout the 20,000-acre preserve.
Park officials say that too many deer upset the ecology because they eat at a rate that won't allow forests to regenerate. Hardwood trees and certain flowers native to some areas have nearly disappeared, they say.
The park system's Bedford reservation was severely damaged seven years ago because the estimated deer density reached 110 per square mile, officials said. In the wake of sharpshooting, Bedford deer dropped to an estimated 30 per square mile in 2003.
Animal rights activists argue that killing deer does not effectively thin herds because those left living have a greater food source, making them stronger, more sexually active and able to produce more offspring.
They call for nonlethal methods such as birth control, though that approach can be costly and labor intensive. The deer has to be caught, tranquilized and injected with a birth control drug. Such drugs are still undergoing tests and not yet proven effective.
Biologist, methodology
come under attack
The Metroparks this year hired a biologist to test contraceptives on deer in the Ohio & Erie Canal reservation.
But the biologist, Tony DeNicola of Connecticut, is also a sharpshooter-for-hire, so he is tagged as an enemy by animal rights groups nationwide.
"He makes more money killing deer than sterilizing them," said Steve Hindi of the Illinois-based animal rights group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, also known as SHARK.
Hindi accused sharpshooters in the Summit County park system last month of animal cruelty after his group filmed a deer kill with hidden cameras. Footage shows deer dropping to the ground under gunfire and then men putting plastic bags over the animals' heads while they appeared to be still alive, kicking and twisting.
Despite such violence, most wildlife officials say sharpshooting is the quickest, cheapest and easiest way to thin herds.
It's used at Gettysburg National Military Park, where deer herds 10 years ago were so heavy, they destroyed farm fields and orchards vital to the historic landscape.
The federal government requires an environmental impact study before it allows deer killing on parklands.
In the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, that study is expected to begin this year and take two years to complete.
Park biologist Lisa Petit estimates deer density in the 33,000-acre national preserve is as low as 40 per square mile and as high as 130 per square mile.
"It's simple in the animal world," she said. "If you have lots of food and nothing is eating you, you have more offspring and you increase your numbers."
Whitetails in the Eastern United States have steadily increased over the last half-century. But there was a time when the graceful animal was on the brink of extinction.
Throughout the 19th century, uncontrolled hunting and cutting forests for farmland nearly wiped out the American whitetail. By 1903, there were no deer in Ohio.
In the early 1920s, the state brought whitetails from other areas to breed and restock.
For two decades, they roamed and populated. In 1943, Ohio opened its first deer-hunting season.
For the next 40 years, hunters outnumbered deer nationwide. But by the mid-1980s, deer paced ahead. And between 1988 and 1999, they were reproducing at the rate of 1 million a year.
Today, Ohio is home to an estimated 680,000 deer and 450,000 deer hunters. Nationwide, there are 33 million deer and 13 million hunters.
Hunters usually stalk bucks in a quest for antler trophies, contributing to the population explosion because a few bucks can impregnate many does.
In the last few years, the growth rate of deer has begun to decline, due partly to state management programs that encourage hunters to kill more does, said Brian Murphy of Quality Deer Management Association, a nonprofit group in Georgia that advises hunters, farmers and states on deer control.
In 1999, he said, American hunters for the first time killed more does than antlered bucks.
"Deer need hunters as much as hunters need deer," said Murphy. "This wild, beautiful animal evolved as prey for the saber-toothed tiger and it has adapted as prey. It wouldn't be the magical, elusive animal that we now have without that pressure.
"But we have effectively eliminated its predators in North America. And now humans have to play that role. Without hunting, the wolf becomes the dog, the deer becomes the cow."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
momalley@plaind.com, 216-999-4893
© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.