Mention the word “deer” to people, and some will conjure up images of Bambi-like fawns, others of good venison. For Lake County residents, though, the furry mammals have often been a root of headaches and controversy.
For five years the Lake County Forest Preserve District has implemented its deer-management program, consisting of an annual kill of many of the county’s deer by hired sharpshooters, with the meat being given to charitable organizations. The program has polarized forest preserve officials and wildlife protectionists.
The plan is designed to combat what forest preserve officials claim is the county’s deer overpopulation problem. They maintain that the deer-culling programs are necessary to safeguard the integrity of the forests.
“Certain preferred species (of plant life) are disappearing,” said forest preserve wildlife biologist Frank Drummond. “If left unchecked, they can begin destroying the entire understory of the forest community.” Flora and fauna both suffer when deer feed to excess, Drummond said. Among the deer’s favorite wildflowers are trillium and yellow violets and the increasingly rare purple fringed orchid and hairy white violet.
Each winter, aerial counts are taken to determine how many deer are browsing in the preserves. Based on scientific journals and the density goals of other deer-management agencies, the forest preserve staff has determined that 15 deer per square mile is the preferred site objective for Lake County preserves. Drummond acknowledged that the forest can accommodate a greater number of deer than the site objective reflects.
When the program began, deer culls were confined to the Ryerson Conservation Area near Deerfield. Since then the kills have been expanded to include MacArthur Woods and Daniel Wright/Lloyds Woods, both near Mettawa. Helicopter counts this winter revealed a total of 85 deer in the Ryerson, MacArthur and Wright/Lloyds preserves, which comprise nearly 1,500 acres. Of these, a total of 45 will have been shot by the end of the program this year.
The kills have spurred action by the wildlife protectionists, including the formation of the Ryerson Deer Foundation, a group dedicated to preserving the county’s deer population. The organization now boasts a mailing list of 1,500 people, according to the foundation’s director, Davida Terry.
One source of contention is the funding. “Our tax dollars are going for something we don’t want,” said Kathy Krakowski, a member of the Ryerson Deer Foundation. Drummond estimated that the cost to remove each deer is about $225.
Also adding to the ire of some is the fact that the deer population in Lake County is sparse compared with surrounding counties. Four Du Page County preserves, for example, exceed 100 deer per square mile, according to Du Page Forest Preserve spokesman John Oldenburg. As a result, Du Page County has instituted a culling program this year in the Waterfall Glen area, with a goal of reducing density to 20 deer per square mile. And culling programs also are in effect in Cook County, which has a goal of 18 deer per square mile.
Lake wildlife protectionists also argue that the deer are not in danger of starvation, making the culling process in Lake County unnecessary.
Krakowski lives close to the Ryerson preserve but said deer are practically non-existent. “I haven’t seen a deer in the Ryerson area for months. And we drive around the preserve specifically for that purpose.”
Drummond conceded that the Lake County program is primarily preventive in scope, unlike deer-management programs in other counties, which often serve a curative function.
“There are some other forest preserve districts (in neighboring counties) that are doing deer-removal programs, and their density objectives are much lower than ours. Their programs provide for more recovery than we need to do,” Drummond said.
Ryerson, MacArthur and Wright/Lloyds woods are all dedicated nature preserves, representing some of the finest examples of forestry in the state, Drummond said. As such, they demand a higher quality of care and protection than ordinary preserves, he said. Deer do not pose a dangerous threat to the plant life in these preserves now, but in their current numbers, the deer could cause irreparable damage in the not-too-distant future, Drummond said.
Drummond explained that the preserve uses exclosures to measure the impact of the damage deer create. The exclosures are fenced-in parcels of land that prevent deer from feeding within. Staff members compare the land’s condition inside the exclosures with land the deer do graze on.
Another point of disagreement centers on the accuracy of the aerial counts. Both the forest preserve and the wildlife protectionists agreed there is some room for dispute. Some deer may not be spotted at all, while others may be counted twice.
John Clemetsen, a Long Grove resident who is also a steward for the Reed-Turner Woodland in Long Grove, has twice participated in the aerial counts as an impartial observer. From his perspective, the helicopter count is a reliable means of counting deer.
“They’re relatively easy to spot. Yes, you have to be careful you don’t count a bunch of logs. But deer move. They have a very distinct outline and shape. It may, for the first time up, be a little confusing. But you learn pretty quickly, pretty early what you’re seeing,” Clemetsen said.
Many opponents of the program also find it ironic that a government body elected to protect wildlife chooses to kill deer as part of its charge. Forest Preserve Commissioner Pam Newton acknowledged that it is difficult to reconcile the job of protecting the forests with destroying deer.
At the Chicago Botanic Garden along Lake-Cook Road, a nature area dedicated to preserving plant life, electrical deer fencing is used to prevent plant specimens from turning into lunch, but such measures would not be practical in broad areas such as the forest preserves.
Roy Taylor, director of the Botanic Garden, said in addition to the electrical fencing, the Botanic Garden has and uses a permit that allows culling deer by shooting them. Taylor said deer clearly do damage in unprotected areas, and he considers both methods to be an effective means of protecting plant life.
But whether to protect plants or animals is without question a balancing act. “There is a very sincere conflict between preservation and the best way to preserve our forests. It’s certainly not an easy task of balancing,” Newton said.
Newton was the only County Board member on the finance committee to withhold approval for this year’s deer kill, in a vote taken Jan. 22. “I made it quite clear I’m not opposed to the culling process in general,” Newton said. But, she added, “I simply didn’t feel comfortable giving authorization for that number. I didn’t feel the necessity.”
Newton was referring to the 18 deer scheduled to be killed in Wright Woods this year. She said aerial counts were taken in Wright/Lloyd’s Woods, Half Day Preserve and Stevenson Woods, but all the deer to be culled are being taken from one preserve, Wright/Lloyd’s Woods, effectively removing all the deer from that parcel.
Much of the controversy has been sparked by poor public relations, Newton believes. She hopes that before 1994 the board can dictate a policy that remedies that problem, a policy that details long-term prospects for the community. “I think that people just want to know will the forest preserve be culling in all the preserves? The answer most likely is no,” Newton said.
One potential alternative to the existing deer-culling program is an experimental fertility-control system, now undergoing pilot studies elsewhere in the nation.
Allen Rutberg, a researcher with the Humane Society of the United States, said, “We know it works. It’s been tested in a multishot form. We know it produces the response. The only question is how to get it into the one-shot means.”
The proposed contraceptive is administered to female deer by shooting them with darts. The drug should prevent offspring from one to two years. Though no long-term studies have been performed on white-tailed deer, Rutberg said, the contraceptive has proved successful in horses for more than six years. He estimated that the deer drug will be commercially available by the fall of 1994.
Because the researchers have explicitly stated they would not conduct field tests on sites where deer-culling programs were in effect, the forest preserve has been targeted for additional criticism by protectionists. Rutberg said the deer become wary and more difficult to dart after they have been shot at in culling programs. In addition, the researchers were disappointed to find that many preserves were using the Humane Society program requirements to justify deer kills.
“What we’ve found in several localities is that our requirements have been twisted to imply that we require people to kill deer before the contraception program begins. We emphatically do not,” Rutberg said.
However, Rutberg said Lake County never had been seriously considered as a pilot site.
