FW: FW: DEER-Deerfacts.org Fox Chapel
Teresa Gallagher
Interesting article on deer (see attached photo first).
Fox Chapel, PA
Fox Chapel, an affluent suburb of Pittsburgh,
got its wake-up call about deer overpopulation in the early 1990s. One of the
natural jewels of the wooded borough of 5,500 homes was a strip of forest that
transformed itself each spring into a fantasyland. There were literally,
hundreds of thousands of Trilliums blanketing the forest floor. It was called
the Trillium Trail and was known far and wide. *
But Trillium is a snack of the whitetailed deer. (Indeed, it is an indicator
species, a kind of detector for deer overpopulation.) By 1992, when Fox
Chapel began its first deer reduction efforts, the deer were decimating the
trail. Police Chief David Laux, then a sergeant, remembers it clearly.
"People saw it and thought maybe there was some kind of a blight affecting
the Trilliums. They considered it a mystery. Our police force had been noticing
the increase in deer for years already and we had been saying this--the deer
are over-running the woodlands. But we finally had to take people out and show
them the hoof prints in the trampled Trilliums."
Laux said that when he had joined the force in the 1980s, the Trillium Trail
was the big attraction and the only notable magnet for traffic in the
sequestered community of Fox Chapel, which has no malls or large stores, even
to this day. "We had to put an officer to direct traffic down by the road
that has the best view of the trail," he said.
There were also citizen complaints about deer damage. Some of the homeowners
were putting in $20,000 worth of plantings and seeing them decimated in a
single season. There were about 80 to 90 vehicle collisions with deer each
year, in a community that only has about 60 total miles of roads and streets.
This was estimated to be costing motorists $1 million a year.
As the deer problem came into focus, there were, of course, people who did not
believe that deer should be culled. "It had gotten a little crazy,"
Laux said. "There were deer bedding in people's bushes, even bedding down
on the doorsteps. There were kids feeding the deer, getting licked by the deer.
This isn't really the safest thing, especially if you're petting a doe in the
rut when a buck happens to be around."
Thus, there were some very contentious meetings as they considered what to do.
But, after all alternatives were weighed, the borough came up with a
three-pronged plan. One part of the plan was sharpshooting, a second part was
archery hunting by qualified local hunters, and the third was trapping the
deer, with hopes of transporting them to a place where they could be released.
As it developed, the trapping was not successful. There were several reasons.
First, the trap design was not rugged enough, and a terrified deer could kick
it apart. Sometimes the deer would escape, and other times would be entangled in
the trap, only to suffer until it was discovered. They also found that there
was no county in Pennsylvania that would
accept transported deer (and no state in the U.S., nowadays). And deer often die
from the stress of being trapped and released into a foreign range. Thus, only
about six deer were ever successfully trapped, and they were euthanized.
In contrast, the sharpshooting and the archery programs were begun in 1992 and
they have been very successful. Initially, the largest share of the deer harvest
was accomplsihed by the archers, but now today, the sharpshooting accounts for
most of it.
Rather quaintly, though, Fox Chapel accounts for its "Deer Removal
Statistics" each year in three categories. They are
"sharpshooters," "archers," and "vehicles."
In 1993, the community recorded 81 deer killed by collisions. This was promptly
reduced and for the last decade, the number is now about 20-25 a year.
Archery hunting is accomplished in accordance with all the local hunting laws,
and the borough maintains a list of pre-qualified bowhunters so that residents
can draw from their expertise. Homeowners are free to bring in their own
bowhunters, but are strongly advised that the outcome, in both safety and
efficiency, is better if they draw from the borough's pre-qualified list.
In 1993, the archers took 120 deer, and their productivity increased to 216 in
1996. Partly as a measure of their success, though, their share of the annual
harvest has been steadily tapering off, to 63 last year and perhaps only about
41 this season. At the peak, there were 50 archers in the program; now there
are about 38.
The archers are required to log their time spent, and a wealth of other
statistics have been kept, providing many years of study data for the
Pennsylvania Game Commission. The archers must devote sufficient time in
hunting or they are eliminated from the list for subsequent years.
Sharpshooting is conducted under a special PGC permit and it takes place from
around February 1 to March 31, but is permitted until September. Sharpshooting
responsibilities have been under the police department for many years now, and
the entire current staff consists of Chief Laux and an assistant, who alternate
as spotter and shooter. A third person mans a truck and picks up the carcasses.
All of the venison is processed and donated to the needy. They do the work at
night, rarely waking anyone, since they use a suppressor on the rifle.
Laux first checks out each shooting lane in daylight. He has the very great
advantage that many homeowners call him and tell him where the deer are. If a
safe shot can be taken, Laux makes a note and comes back after midnight. He is
careful not to trouble unwelcoming neighbors. "There are some owners who
don't want the deer shot. One of them said, 'I'd rather see you on the hood of
a car than a deer.' " Laux said. "I tell them, 'I respect your
feelings and you won't find me shooting deer near your property. If you should
need police help for another problem, you can count on us to be there, as
always.' "
Laux uses a high-powered sniper rifle, which has the stopping power so that he
can aim for the deer's front shoulder or lung-heart-lung. He is aware of other
techniques such as using a low-powered fragmenting round and aiming for the
skull, but he has found over many years that his technique is reliable. Careful
to always know what is behind the target, he has never had an incident of a
ricochet or stray bullet. The two-man team has now actually worn out two rifles
in over 15 years of shooting.
They are very efficient. In just four of their hunting nights in early February
2009, the two men harvested 51 deer, with many weeks still available for
sharpshooting. Their yearly tally for 2007-2008 was 74 and the year before,
128. The results as far as herd reduction? Early on, Fox Chapel had an
aerial survey and it was estimated that they had about 600 deer. This was in a
borough of about 8.5 square miles, but only about four are woodlands (thus,
about 150 deer per square mile). Aerial surveys have been conducted
periodically, and the last one, about two years ago, yielded an estimate of 190
deer. The eventual goal for the borough is about 80-100 deer, which would be
predicated on a Pennsylvania Game Commission target of about 20-25 per square
mile of woodlands.
Some residents have installed deer fencing and even some parts of the Trillium
Trail are fenced now, Laux said. The Trilliums are slowly coming back, but it
clearly will take time, and the entire effort could be undone if the deer herd
is not kept in check. It has been found that Trilliums that have been browsed
down repeatedly do not immediately recover. Sadly, perhaps, while area
residents hope for a return of the Trilliums, they are offered a "Virtual
Trillium Trail" as part of an educational simulation program being
conducted by a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh,
Maria C.R. Harrington.
Each fall, the deer statistics are reported in the borough's newsletters, found
at this page <http://www.fox-chapel.pa.us/boronews_newsletters.htm>
.
* There are many trails nicknamed Trillium Trail in the U.S. and Canada, but the one at Fox Chapel
was very famous.
===================
Photo caption:
Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania
was once the home of a widely known “Trillium Trail,” with
thousands of blossoms appearing each spring. Deer overpopulation changed all
that.
Teresa Gallagher
Attached two photos of deer in one of the meadows at Klapick yesterday. There were four does on the right side of the meadow, and five bucks in the left side of the meadow. I turned a corner and there were a couple more deer (different ones). These aren’t great shots because I used my cell phone.
Kelly saw 15 coyotes there a couple weeks ago, yipping and howling.
Teresa Gallagher
Conservation Agent
City of Shelton
54 Hill Street, Shelton, CT
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McCreery, Edward P.
Reminds me of ballroom dancing class in 7th grade with the girls on one side of the room and the boys on the other and each afraid to get up first.
