Oh, Deer! : Bumper Crop of ‘Bambis’ Makes Them a Nuisance in Many Parts

They are called suburban cows. Rats with hoofs. Four-legged tree killers.

Some areas are in the throes of a deer population explosion, and as the Bambis multiply, so do their nasty nicknames. So, too, do the effects of deer run amok: There are more highway mishaps, more trees devoured, more damage to crops and and ornamental shrubs and more deer ticks to carry Lyme disease.

“In some areas, deer have exceeded what I call the social-caring capacity. Some people view them as a nuisance,” said Robert Byrne of the Wildlife Management Institute, a Washington-based conservation group.

Reduced in number to about 500,000 a century ago, an estimated 25 million deer now roam free in the United States, according to Byrne.

That’s as many deer as occupied the land when the European colonists arrived--and there are a lot more people now, and fewer places for deer to live.

Deer get into trouble because of their bellies. They eat five pounds of browse daily and consume 600 different kinds of plants, including corn, wheat, tree seedlings and azaleas.

Last year, deer ate $36.7 million worth of crops in Wisconsin, where their population is at an all-time high. Crop damage due to deer in Pennsylvania is valued at $36.4 million a year.

“Crops are the easiest thing out there to eat. It sure beats eating twigs,” said John Johnson of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.

In some areas of the Allegheny Plateau in Pennsylvania and New York, deer consume everything to a height of 6 feet--as high as they can reach. That prevents seedlings from regenerating.

One study by the U.S. Agriculture Department put deer damage to timber at $13.40 a year per acre, or $10 billion over the 80-year cycle of a stand of trees.

“Agent Orange can’t hold a candle to deer. They’re four-legged tree killers,” said David Marquis, a research manager with the U.S. Forest Service.

They are human killers too. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said 131 people died in 1989 because their cars or trucks struck animals on the road. The number of accidents involving deer alone is unknown.

The Wisconsin Insurance Alliance puts deer damage to vehicles at $30 million to $40 million annually, based on an estimate of 20,000 crashes at $1,500 each.

In Pennsylvania, 42,000 motorists struck deer on the roads last year. Some estimates double that number because many accidents go unreported. North Carolina’s animal-vehicle accident rate has doubled in the last 10 years, and that means a lot of crumpled front ends.

“Deer are very high centered,” said Jack Els, regional claim supervisor for State Farm Insurance in North Dakota. “So the front bumper survives, but there usually is a lot of damage to the grill, the hood area and, quite often, even the windshield. We’ve had cases where the animal ended up in the driver’s lap and resulted in some serious injuries.”

All kinds of gadgets to repel deer have been tried. Ultrasonic whistles attached to car fenders are supposed to scare deer with high-pitched alarms. Airports have put up fences to keep deer off runways. Suburbanites hang bars of deodorant soap or tufts of human hair in bags on shrubs. One commercial repellent is made of cougar dung.

In Ohio and New Jersey, deer birth control is being attempted, with contraceptive vaccines and salt licks.

Some animal-rights advocates blame hunting for the deer explosion: “The intent is to provide enough targets for recreational killing and to sell enough hunting licenses. It’s a big, bloody business,” said Heidi Prescott of the Fund for Animals in Silver Spring, Md.

Others say man is responsible in a different way.

“People are seeing more deer on the roads, in mall parking lots, everywhere. It never occurs to them that these places were deer habitat until recently,” said Dave Workman of the Washington Department of Wildlife.