From WTOP:
Fairfax City wants to become the first community in Virginia to use surgical sterilization to control its deer population.
All that’s needed to go forward with the experiment is final approval from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and approval looks likely.
The man who will lead it, wildlife biologist Dr. Anthony DeNicola, has run similar programs in other parts of the country.
He estimates the City of Fairfax has between 50 to 75 deer within its 6 square miles, fewer than he initially expected.
Under the five-year program, the female deer will undergo surgery to remove their ovaries, with a goal of having all the does sterilized by the second year.
“The reason we target females in deer is they’re a polygamous species. Meaning one male will copulate or breed with multiple females,” DeNicola told city councilmembers this week.
He said the city’s density will actually help researchers get their job done.
“Your deer are used to seeing cars. You probably pull in your driveway, you see them, they ignore you. We take advantage of that.”
“When we come along … usually escorted by an (police) officer, they can’t differentiate our presence from anyone else’s or obviously our intention.”
DeNicola said when conducting sterilization programs in other cities, they’ve typically stayed on public roads and in parks.
“We’ll only engage deer if we see them on a front lawn, in a park area, some type of road frontage area,” he said.
Does will be shot with tranquilizer darts, carefully transported to a central location for surgery and given numbered ear tags before being released.
Some does will be fitted with something else.
“We’ll have 20 individuals that will have individual radio collars that are trackable.”
Nicola said in the past, he’s used six different trusted veterinarians to conduct the procedures.
“We feel comfortable that the animals are treated humanely, and that we can do this in a reasonably efficient manner.”
DeNicola said typically the cost of the sterilization program is about $1,000 per deer, but that can drop to $500 per deer if volunteer veterinarians are used.
This is going to cost the city of Fairfax money to “spay” the deer.
West Virginia’s urban areas have a somewhat more effective and cost efficient plan.
I just can’t believe that people would waste money on something like this. It doesn’t cost much to have an urban bow hunt!
$1,000 a deer.
Just please some AR fanatics.
Wow.
People thinks money grows on trees and they do not see the big picture of ecology.
Our state does controlled hunting. I am told that the venison is used in soup kitchens… My daughter last night had a buck come up to her in our back yard and it took an apple from her hand. I guess they are easy prey living in among us humans. They sleep in a circle in the back sometimes and we saw one once sleeping under our deck.. We have white tail and they are so pretty.
We are experiencing right now a Six-day Firearm Deer Season that started Dec 9th. I woke up to the sound of gun shots. I understand it is necessary to control the population but a part of me cringes. Head and heart at odds with one another.
When Rock Creek Park across the river in DC announced that it would be thinning the herd with archers, neighbors took the park authorities (I think NPS?) to court to prevent it. They ended up losing, but it screwed up the timing and wasted a lot of money. I suspect FFX City – which is a much smaller jurisdiction than the surrounding County – thought spending their money this way was cheaper than court fees.
To clarify, the neighbors lost and the hunt was carried out eventually. I believe they also donate it all to local food banks.
Hunting is an old and effective way of controlling populations. Spaying deer sounds like a bad joke to me!
Sigggghhhh….
Presumably the sterilised does will be tagged in case there are further projects on new does moving in?
I suppose the local authority are trying to balance a perceived need to keep down numbers but without becoming unpopular with many of their electorate.
I suppose also there might be perceived too much potential collateral damage from risking drone strikes as this is not Pakistan where those that use such weapons might deem such risk to be “acceptable”. Sorry, that was in very very bad taste…
The stupid just burns.
Why do people think populations reach an optimum & just stay there? Um, no, the natural world exists in a state of dynamic equilibrium. There is a constant flux of more or less plant life, leading to more or less herbivores, leading to more or less carnivores (to put it in *very* simple terms). An exploding deer population results in a reduced food supply, disease, & fighting, thus reducing the deer population. Any predators in the area will also take advantage of the explosion, particularly the influx of young, starved, diseased, & injured animals, & then in turn will also experience a temporary explosion. Then when they’ve killed off all the deer, they too will have a die back as food becomes scarce & there is increased competition for food & mates.
Why people do not grasp this basic concept is beyond me. And how shooting deer with a rifle & using the meat to feed the human population (which is also exploding & with a far, far more detrimental effect on the environment, might I add) is somehow inhumane but subjecting them to anesthesia & surgery & temporary captivity isn’t. And what the hell do these people think happens to deer in the wild? Deer not killed by hunters don’t go on to live a peaceful happy life before dying painlessly in their sleep. They’re invariably killed by predators of one kind or another pretty much as soon as they begin to slow down a bit. And it’s generally a much messier, scarier, & more painful death than a bullet or an arrow through the heart. That’s just how it works.
On human expansion, Anna fear not, if latest statistics and predictions are correct, I believe the good news is that family sizes all over the world are tending to stabilise at one to three maximum. On deer, here in the British Isles we have an overpopulation in the absence of natural controls such as predators or deer hunters and this has a severe effect on forest vegetation. One can understand the concern of that town but as suggested it does seem a daft solution.
Not quite exactly on topic. but the attempted badger cull in Britain has just about failed to kiil enough badgers (to stop spread of TB in cows which eat TB affected grass). As predicted, the survivors move into new areas and the spread of TB is therefore going to be worse. Bovine TB isn’t everywhere and arguably doing nothing may after all be better. However. large scale gassing is being discussed as we speak. I don’t expect to that tried this side of the next election. Our beloved Brer badger he sleep easy just for now.
In Hawaii hunters have been known to live catch young piglets, castrate them, and set them free. The hunters hope that one of the grown pigs they kill later will be one of these neutered hogs, and the meat will be marbled with fat, tender, and tasty.
Think the ear tagged does will be more desirable next year?
I don’t want to be cold, but birth and death numbers have to be equal unless food amount for the deer increases.
If you decrease deer numbers in town ( by any means) and the town deer are getting fat, then hungry deer from the woods will move into town. You know, hungry cats, fish, birds, bears, etc will roam looking for food, and they will linger where the food is good. Wouldn’t you?
It isn’t always DEATH by predator. The mumps virus did run through human populations (before the mumps vaccine). The mumps virus will sterilize some men who contract it – their behavior, feeling, etc, remain unchanged, but there are no sperm in their juice.
Boys before puberty, were not sterilized, but were immune to contracting mumps a second time. This was because the mumps virus destroyed some rapidly dividing cells, like the cells that make sperm in men. But in boys these cells are not yet rapidly dividing and so are safe.
I don’t know what affect it had on cancer cells, if any.
I read something about a pzp virus that sterilizes female deer.
But if a town is surrounded by woods, more deer will move in from the woods unless those deer are sterilized too.
That takes me back to when ‘mumps parties’ were held, in Britain of old, for prepubescents to attend!
Spaying with ear tags might work on an island, but not where more deer will just move in. Early Americans killed off most of the grizzly bear (except yellowstone park?), but some still migrate down the Rockies from Canada. Early Americans destroyed wolves in most areas too, except near the Canadian border, where wolves can come down into places like Idaho, Montana, and Minnesota. And near the Canadian border is where the coyotes are most likely to be part wolf.
We camped twice in Yosemite during the nineties, by then there were only black bears present I believe( met one just out of its winter nap and trying to get into a car next to ours) A park official insisted on driving us back to our tent cabin which, to our consternation, had long tears in it – roughly taped up..!
I think there have been grizzly bears in or near yellowstone park for as long as the US has been a country – probably long before that, but nobody wrote their sittings down for the future.
There was a grizzly bear attack in Yellowstone Park a few years back. Glacier Park (near the Canadian Border) also has had grizzly bears.
When I was younger I felt like Jan. Deer are so graceful and beautiful. But I’ve learned not to let my heart go out to them. I know they over produce themselves, and so must be hunted (or allowed to starve to death, destroying trees as they try to eat the bark off of them). Hunters are quicker than winter starvation.
Loving the endangered species is easier as there low numbers is what makes them protected.
As to the town’s problem, I assume they don’t wanting hunting in town, but they don’t want so many deer in town. And they don’t want dogs running loose in town either. Perhaps they could put a bounty on deer killed outside of town, but within 50 miles of town. Once the grass is greener back in the woods where the deer belong, they will spread out into the empty niche in the woods near the town, where their numbers can be periodically thinned.
Hi May, I am in the suburbs but my back yard backs to a good size tract of wild land. Our shooting is done safely close to where people live. I am not against it. I understand rationally that it needs to be done but I still feel sadness when I hear the shots go off. The deer are so tame living among us that there really is no sport in the shoot. It is pretty easy to pick them off with no harm to the people who live here. Head and heart at odds.
A couple of years ago we saw white tail with gross tumors all over them. I found out it was cutaneous fibroma, caused by a virus. When we reported this to animal control, they came out and shot the affected deer right away. Apparently it is very contagious. I don’t know if this can spread to other animals. Little off topic but many of our deer were shot. The deer were horrifying to view. They were covered with growths…
I looked up photos of the deer disease. I can understand why hunters quit hunting them. Protection via disease.
Can someone explain to me why they don’t castrate the male deer. Surely it would be less expensive than desexing female deer? I know with dogs, cats etc., the desexing of males is far cheaper than with females – does this apply with deer?
Males die quite young compared to females.
not fair, is it Dave..
I’ve an idea, have, instead of a spring hunt, a spring deer castration and tagging season, where people who are against hunting can volunteer to find, catch, and treat and release young male deer.
Think many would show up? Think they could find and catch enough male deer?