At the last City Council meeting, a citizen-initiated ordinance was approved that would allow Springfield to organize a controlled deer hunt inside the city limits in order to reduce the deer population in local neighborhoods.

This issue was originally brought forward to Council’s attention by three different neighborhood associations—whose residents were weary of the auto-deer collisions and other property damage associated with the increased deer herds. 

The issue was remanded to the Community Involvement Committee, chaired by Zone 2 Council member Cindy Rushefsky.  At the first committee meeting, presentations were made by representatives of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and Springfield City Utilities.

The Department of Conservation representatives presented Council with a history of the white-tailed deer population in the state of Missouri.  The population graph they presented shows a fascinating series of trends (and one anomaly) over a 300-year period.  That graph can be found on the Missouri Conservation Commission website.

The three trends shown are

·         The steady decrease in population once Native Americans were introduced to “modern” weapons, i.e., firearms;

·         A rapid decrease to almost extinction from around 1840 to 1940 as more and more people moved into the area and there was increased hunting for food; and

·         A strong increase in white-tailed deer population from about 1940 when modern wildlife management efforts began.

The hiccup was a brief upturn in population as modern farming techniques were introduced into the Missouri wilderness in the mid-1800s and cultivated food sources became available to the deer.  That upturn was short-lived.

The interesting feature is that—now—the deer population has climbed far higher than it was in 1700.  As a result of that rapid increase in deer population and the simultaneous growth of cities and towns, deer have been moving out of the crowded woods and fields into more urban areas.  This growth is exacerbated when urban areas also have large undeveloped public lands where the deer have no natural predators.

As the deer and human population began to inhabit adjacent or even overlapping areas, public health issues began to emerge.  There has been an increase in the number and severity of tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme’s Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever, and others.

In addition, according to the Conservation personnel, the primary cause of death of deer in Missouri is the deer-vehicle accident.  While this normally results in the death of the deer, the cost of property damage to vehicles is considerable, not to mention the possibility of injury and death to the driver and passengers.

The Missouri Department of Conservation has studied the concept of controlling deer population for several years.  There are several techniques to accomplish this, including hiring of sharpshooters using firearms; trapping and moving the deer to another, more compatible location; contraceptives distributed to the herds; and a controlled archery hunt. 

The first two are cost-prohibitive to most municipalities and especially Springfield with our current budget constraints; contraceptives have to be re-distributed annually and are not necessarily effective throughout the entire herd.  That leaves the controlled deer hunt as the most viable alternative, given our constraints, the deer population, and the terrain. 

In the next posting, we’ll look at the safeguards built in to the controlled hunt and how this would be managed.