A herd of roaming visitors browses in the oak forest of the Girl Scouts`
Camp Greene Wood near Lisle, its presence signaled by the snap of undergrowth and the startled swish of tails.
Twenty-nine deer were spotted in the 135-acre camp during an aerial count last week, a number so high that it makes the camp, owned by the Girl Scouts of Du Page County Council, a candidate for white-tail nirvana.
”What I call it is Club Med for deer,” said Gary Bergling, the council`s facilities manager. ”It`s got hiding places and good plants to eat. We did a fly-by because we were just sort of curious as to what we had here. We`ve seen some pretty large gatherings.”
The camp has more deer per acre than what wildlife managers would like to see-about 15 to 30 deer per square mile-but the deer haven`t killed a lot of plants at the camp, and Bergling said there has been no talk about thinning the herd.
But in many other parts of Du Page, deer are making regular meals out of rare and expensive plants, shrubs and trees, prompting the Du Page County Forest Preserve District to draft a plan to shoot deer, or kill them by other means. It is the first time the agency has adopted a deer-control plan in its 77-year history, although similar deer kills have been going on in Cook and Lake Counties.
The district`s staff approved a deer removal program last Thursday, as allowed under county law, and the district, which owns 50 percent of the county`s deer habitat, will begin eliminating deer in January, said John Oldenburg, superintendent of grounds and natural resources.
Deer will be killed by sharpshooters stationed in trees above deer-feeding stations, or trapped under rocket-powered nets and later killed by hitting them over the head with a stainless steel rod, said Marty Jones, manager of the Illinois Department of Conservation`s Urban Deer Project.
”We really need a plan because the population of the deer has grown to such an extent that they`re actually hurting the preserves,” said John Case, Forest Preserve Commission president. ”They`re over-grazing, eating the new seedlings that we plant. What we need is a balance so that they all can survive.”
The increase in the deer population has been tracked for more than a year and is attributed to housing and commerical developments that have forced the deer to move closer together, increasing the density of the population. At the time, new trees and shrubs have been planted, and these provide food for nearby deer.
The deer-kill program will focus on deer in Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve, the most remote and topographically diverse preserve, with more than 100 deer per square mile, Oldenburg said. Eight-member crews will enter the preserve to target deer, and the work will continue until March or April. During that time, Waterfall Glen will close at 4 p.m., instead of an hour after sunset, as usual.
Deer control efforts in one region of the county could affect the number of deer seen in other parts, because deer, which are not migratory, do travel short distances using connecting green corridors.
Animal rights activists contacted in Du Page, many of whom had not heard of the Forest Preserve District`s plan, said they will urge the district to pursue non-lethal options.
”I`d hate for them to say, `There`s too many deer, let`s kill them,`
” said Don Rolla, U.S. president of Elsa Wild Animal Appeal. ”You can put up barriers so they won`t get there first. You could protect individual plants and put up fences, so access isn`t so easy. There are a lot of options available.”
Linda Geant, president of AWARE, or Awareness of Wildlife and Animal Rights through Education, said: ”The fact that we`re encroaching on their land is a major problem. There are many things going against these poor animals, and it`s man each time.”
As deer herds swell in suburban Chicago, they are also thriving in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota and elsewhere, said Rick Julian, wildlife team leader in the Minnesota office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
He traces the explosive growth to the mild winters of the last few years and to the disappearance of wolves and other predators.
Deer can wander relatively fearlessly in suburban areas. And because much of the natural landscape was reshaped for development, there`s ample brush and young plants, the preferred forage, Julian said.
Contrary to popular myth, white-tail deer were not nearly as numerous when the Midwest was settled as they are now, Julian said, because there was a greater mix of animals, such as elk and moose, competing for food.
So the more people destroy or alter virgin forests and habitat, the more likely they are to create a landscape in which deer thrive, he said.
White-tail deer love what Julian calls a ”transition forest,” with its small trees, brush and fields.
The only predators the deer face, other than humans, are occasional coyotes and domestic dogs on the loose, Julian said. And in the meantime, they browse through the preserves, nurseries and sometimes back yards, consuming or damaging common and rare plants alike.
Du Page land managers say that while they don`t like the idea of killing deer, there has to be a give-and-take between plants and animals to keep the ecosystem in balance.
The lead horticulturist at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, which borders forest preserve land, keeps a list of plants that have been killed or damaged by deer, and the list is growing.
”We are a museum for the display of woody plants, and the deer are damaging our collections,” said horticulturist Kris Bachtell. ”It`s not a matter of not liking deer, but it`s a matter of trying to balance it with damage to the environment. The people who are well-informed understand that deer need to be controlled because they`ve seen damage to their landscaping, and even to their cars.”
Dan Ludwig, the Forest Preserve District`s animal ecologist, has joined in many aerial surveys. He`s helped count deer this year and in past years in the district`s forest preserves, as well as at Argonne National Laboratory, the Morton Arboretum, and in many connecting wildlife corridors and along waterways.
The district`s deer counts show a steadily rising increase in deer herds in Du Page County, with increases of 150 to 250 percent in some of the district`s lands since 1988, Ludwig said. There are deer in 43 of 51 preserves, and the density exceeds 15 deer per square mile in 23 preserves.
The goal is to have less than 20 deer per square mile. Any more deer on the land could cause plant damage that the district considers excessive.
”Once you get into a situation where you`re damaging plant communities, you have to do something,” Ludwig said.
But the herds` sheer numbers could also weaken the deer, because the animals must compete for a diminishing food supply in the diminished wild lands.
A typical adult deer will eat about 10-15 pounds of food a day, Julian said.
”If there`s 50 deer out there and if there`s only room for 20, are we going to make them suffer, all 50, or are we going to live with 20?” Julian asked. ”It`s a biological and an emotional balance.”
