Better in their words…

Gotta love Bambi.. don’t you?
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By Al Cambronne

The U.S. now has 30 million deer, a hundred times more than a century ago. From California to Long Island, the rising deer population has resulted in widespread property damage and crop losses, as well as an increase in Lyme disease and often fatal deer-car collisions. The causes are clear: a lack of natural predators, increased hunting restrictions, and “suburban sprawl” that has created a new attractive habitat.

Less well known is the damage the exploding deer population is doing to America’s woodlands and forests. Each year, every one of those hungry deer devours around 3,000 pounds of vegetation. When they browse too many of those tons from the same small scrap of forest, it has consequences for us, the deer themselves, the ecosystem of which they’re a part, and the American landscape.

Most of us, even if we spend a fair amount of time in the woods, have never seen a forest not shaped by deer. Deer reduce the total density of plants in the understory, says Pennsylvania ecologist Timothy Nuttle, and as “preferential browsers” they also alter species composition and diversity. These changes reverberate through the ecosystem.

Higher deer numbers, for example, invariably lead to lower songbird numbers and less songbird diversity. “Short-term,” says Dr. Nuttle, “too many hungry deer can eliminate the habitat where ground-nesting and midstory birds eat, nest and rest. Then, as whatever trees left behind by deer eventually grow and mature, those effects extend to birds in the canopy.”

In a 2013 field report on the deer population on New York’s Long Island, U.S. Forest Service botanist Thomas J. Rawinski observed that “the forests have been severely damaged by deer, to the point where trees can no longer replace themselves. There are simply too many deer devouring the tree seedlings and saplings.” Native wildflowers, he says, “are now largely gone, and with them the nectar sources that once nourished native insects.” Over hundreds of acres on the Ruth Oliva Preserve, Mashomack Preserve, Tall Pines Conservation Area and a number of private properties, he explained, “an understory layer of shrubs and saplings is missing. The forests have become open and park-like.”

If we care about these places, and if we care about the deer themselves, then we need to make difficult choices. States across the country have begun prolonging deer hunting seasons and raising annual bag limits. Some cities and towns have even allowed deer to be hunted, mostly with bows, within city limits for short periods each year.

Since 2008, for instance, the Long Island town of Southold, N.Y., has issued annual permits for approved bow hunters to help stem the “dramatic increase in the white-tailed deer population” in that town. According to information provided by Southold’s Deer Management Program, from the initial 2008 hunting season through the 2012 season, “a total of 598 deer had been harvested.”

Some environmentalists, especially in urban areas, oppose hunting to cull the herds and argue instead for deer “birth control.” Yet contrary to persistent urban legend, there’s no handy oral deer contraceptive we can slip into a pile of acorns. Nor is there a permanent contraceptive that can be delivered with a single shot from a dart gun. Currently available immunocontraceptive agents have no effect on 10%-15% of the treated does. Even when they’re effective the first year, booster shots are needed in subsequent years.

Then, too, it’s difficult to inject enough does in a large, free-roaming population—and more difficult still to inject each one repeatedly, right on schedule. Even if we could, all those deer would still be present for years—still eating, still wandering out into traffic, and every day welcoming their fertile new friends arriving from nearby. The most optimistic cost estimates for each injection are around $500 per deer. Even surgical sterilization has been tried in a few locales. Although it costs over $1,000 per deer, it is 100% reliable and permanent.

There are no easy answers, and culls like the one in Southold may be our best option. Still, some deer lovers, even though they see themselves as environmentalists, refuse to see the ecological impacts of overabundant deer. Nor are they willing to see a single deer harmed. Local hunters, meanwhile, resent what they see as competition from professional sharpshooters.

For now, Southold officials have assured hunters they’ll continue to play a role in managing the town’s deer population. They can also take comfort in knowing that for the foreseeable future Long Island will have more than enough deer for everyone.

Mr. Cambronne is the author of “Deerland: America’s Hunt for Ecological Balance and the Essence of Wildness” (Lyons Press, 2013).

Al Cambronne: Cant See the Forest for the Deer – WSJ.com.