Report: Fairfax deer population exploding

Washington, D.C. (Map, News) -  Fairfax County is facing a "serious overabundance" of deer, according to a new environmental report that cites a dearth of predators and loss of wooded areas that have driven the animals in closer contact with humans.

The problem is linked with the county's shift in recent decades toward suburban and urban development and away from farms and woodland, according to the report from the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council.

"The problem has been with us for a long time, and it's been growing as we come closer and closer to buildout," said Frank Crandall, a retired biologist and engineer who wrote the chapter on deer in the report. "And when you do that, in ways we don't fully understand yet, it increases the population pressure on them to the point where they over-reproduce. And that is what we're experiencing."

Deer have found a "fairly good nutritional base" in the county, through manicured lawns, athletic fields, landscaped communities and other sources, according to the report. And the same suburban growth has brought not only a loss of predators, like mountain lions and wolves, but also prohibitions on hunting.

The overabundance - which is distinct from an overpopulation in that the species isn't in imminent danger through disease and starvation - is blamed for thousands of car collisions and loss of vegetation needed by other animals.

"We have already begun to see a loss of biodiversity that will ultimately lead to a loss of ecosystem stability, with far more widespread and serious effects than the short-term effects of overabundant deer," the report says.

Since 1993, Fairfax County has posted 2,246 deer-vehicle collisions serious enough to require police presence, which suggests that the total number of crashes is many times that number, according to the document.

The county has undertaken measures to curb the problem, including organized managed hunts and allowing SWAT team members to practice marksmanship by shooting deer, Crandall said. He also points to the expansion of park land, which now comprises about 9 percent of the county, as a step toward controlling deer populations.

The report offered no new recommendations. But the council plans to submit a resolution questioning the subordinate role of the wildlife management program within the police department's animal control section, a situation the report deems "unacceptable."

wflook@dcexaminer.com

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