#95 Deer Sightings in the City
July 17, 2008
This show originally aired in July 17, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net
As I sat at our kitchen table yesterday evening, casually peering into the loose thicket of privet that divides our lot from our neighbors, I was startled to see the tawny brown of what could only be a deer moving slowly across the lawn towards his house.
Head down, browsing on the choice green grass, the deer was unconcerned, casually munching as if it had been there before. Now, for many in our watershed, this would not be an unusual sight, but not only do we live in the city, we live uphill, across the street, and several houses away from the green corridor that flanks the unnamed stream that flows downhill from the ridge of Rugby Road.
So why did the deer choose to cross the road, after all? It was dinner hour and quiet in the neighborhood. People at pools or on vacation. A hot summer day ending in slow summer evenings. The deer must have emerged from the thicket of bamboo that grows wild and barely checked along the drainage swale, traversed the slight slope of the houses, smelled something alluring in our next-door neighbor’s yard, and went for it.
From where I sat, the deer was twenty feet away. It was small, anterless. I guessed it was in its first year. It must have heard us talking at the table with the windows open in voices focused on other matters. I suspect the deer can discern when the attention in focused towards them – just as how one can drive alongside a herd that remains unconcerned until the car stops or a person cracks the window or door.
I stepped outside onto the front porch to watch the deer ramble back down the adjacent yard and cross the street, pausing as if to look both ways. My neighbor, camera in hand, was mid-stride when we caught each other’s eyes, wide in amazement. “Can you believe that?” Walking back inside to own dinner, I suddenly realized that my hostas were no longer safe.
As it turns out, perhaps the deer aren’t either.
Indeed, since the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries started tabulating the number of deer killed per square mile of suitable habitat in the commonwealth, some of the highest rates have occurred in cities, where herd populations have soared the absence the hunting pressures. This has given rise to the Urban Deer Archery Season which last year in Virginia was from September 15 to October 5th, and then again from January 9 through the end of March. The state has overall regulation, but each locale specifies additional requirements such as lot size, permits, notification of landowners, and access to public lands.
Each city, town, or county must formally opt in to the program, which now includes the cities and Colonial Heights, Danville, Emporia, Franklin, Lynchburg, Martinsville, Radford, Richmond, and Winchester, and the towns of Altavista, Amherst, Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Farmville, Independence, Purcellville, Richlands, Rocky Mount, Tazewell, and West Point. Add to the list Fairfax County and you get a picture of where the deer are.
Are we headed this way in Charlottesville? It remains to be seen. The City Parks and Recreation Department is creating a Wildlife Conflict Resolution Policy, driven primarily by the desire to do something about the Canada geese inhabiting our public parks.
Ryan Summers who manages the golf course at Pen Park says deer herds are very visible and cause no more damage than hoof prints on the putting greens that are easy to smoothe out. As he points out, the golf course has plenty of food and water and no predators. He says they are considered more mascot than nuisance.
It remains to be sent whether the conflict resolution needs to be between humans and deer or between humans and other humans who have different ideas of where the deer should and should not be. I confess to feeling quite thrilled to know how close my four-footed neighbors live – that the urban green corridors are doing just what they should, providing habitat and shelter for all kinds of living beings, plant and animal. And, for the time being, will keep a look out next door for a telltale patch of brown amongst the green.