Harry Jaffe, The Examiner
2007-07-31 05:24:00.0
Current rank: # 4,900 of 6,079

WASHINGTON -

At about 6:30 one evening last week a doe stepped gingerly into the intersection of Broad Branch Road and Davenport Street along the tributary that separates Rock Creek Park and the foot of the Forrest Hills neighborhood.

Traffic stopped at the four-way crossroad of two quiet lanes.

The doe looked over her shoulder. A spotted fawn emerged from the brush and stepped into the road. A bit unsteady on long legs, it slowly joined its mother. A few seconds later, its twin fawn hopped from the brush. The little family crossed an old stone bridge and ambled into the park.

Humans at the wheel of their cars dawdled for a moment, looked at one another and appreciated the brief brush with Bambi.

Deer and people seem to be adapting fairly well to one another in the District. In a Darwinian way, Rock Creek Park's fauna and homo sapiens who live near them seem to be evolving into a serene coexistence.

Rock Creek Park is going back to nature and becoming more wild. Fish ladders are allowing herring and shad to swim upstream from the Potomac River and spawn in Rock Creek. Biologists have spotted alewives and gizzard shad past the Park Service Ranger station. Coyotes croon and yip in the night air. Fox slink in and out of the park.

We're living in a peaceable kingdom, so far.

Take the white-tailed deer. The population is slowly growing, deer are venturing deeper into the Chevy Chase and Forest Hills neighborhoods, but casualties are light on both the animal and human side.

In the Virginia or Maryland suburbs, the sight of a dead deer splayed along the road is common. I can attest to seeing a deer dead along Route 7 in Loudoun County every time I venture that way. Only once have I seen a deer down along a D.C. roadway. A car had collided with a six-point buck on Military Road just up the hill from Oregon Avenue.

Military Road is Road Kill Alley for deer. They munch in the meadows bordering the road; cars can zoom 60 miles per hour through the park for a half-mile stretch. But in most of the park, speeds are such that deer and drivers can avoid one another.

There's no avoiding deer who dine on ornamental plants and vegetables. Many park neighbors wail at the loss of a prize hosta -- a deer favorite -- but some have learned to adapt by planting marigolds and begonias or other flowers less appetizing to deer.

Park biologists have identified more troublesome impact of deer inside Rock Creek Park. Deer eat saplings and shrubs of native plants, rather than invasive species, like ivy. The result is that deer help nonnative plants grow and choke out plants that have been growing here for ages.

In some suburbs, sharpshooters have been called in to cull exploding deer populations. Here in the central city, perhaps the coyotes will serve as predators and help keep down the population.

And nature could take its course.

Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at hjaffe@washingtonian.com.