White-Tailed Deer

White-Tailed Deer

Due to urban sprawl into former agricultural lands, the urban deer population has increased. Other factors contributing to this include: a lack of predators, regulations prohibiting firearms discharge, and an abundance of ideal habitat in the form of green spaces.

Overbrowsed vegetation

In locations where populations are not controlled, deer herds became too large for the area to sustain. Overbrowsing endangers local biodiversity by eliminating other species' habitat and food supply.

Another major concern caused by overpopulation is the transmission of disease. As deer often carry blacklegged ticks infected with Lyme Disease, they can then transmit the disease to people and other animals.

Map of Deer-Vehicle Collisions 

Every year, Manitoban drivers report 6,500 to 8,000 deer-vehicle collisions. Manitoba Public Insurance has estimated that the yearly cost of wildlife related collisions, with 65-80% of those being deer, cost Manitobans $27 million annually. In  2012, the City of Winnipeg alone confirmed as many as 300 deer-vehicle collisions.

Based on statistics from 2007 to 2013, the City of Winnipeg was fourth in the province for deer-vehicle collisions with an average of 600 annual collisions. Typically, November is the worst month for wildlife-vehicle collisions (1,600), followed by October (1,400).


References

Adams, Lindsey, Ash. Urban Wildlife Management. Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis Group, 2006. 
Beardsley, John. Designing Wildlife Habitats. Washington, D.C.: Sheridan Books, 2013. 
Lallanilla, Marc. Population Control is One of Many Benefits of Hunting. Green Living, 2013. Retrieved from
 http://greenliving.about.com/od/greenlivingbasics/a/Benefits-Of-Hunting.htm
Manitoba Conservation, Government of Manitoba. MPI Statistics, Human-Wildlife Conflict (brochure), 2013. Retrieved from http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/wildlife/problem_wildlife/wildlife_vehicle.html
McCance, Dr. Erin. November 15, 2014, Winnipeg Wildlife Issues. Interviewed by Beauregard, Chung, Coker, and Wang. In person. Wallace Building, University of Manitoba. 
Pursell, Allen. Too Many Deer: a Bigger Threat to Eastern Forests than Climate Change? The Nature Conservancy, 2013. Retrieved from http://blog.nature.org/science/2013/08/22/too-many-deer/.
Rooney, Thomas. What do we do with too many whitetail deer? Actionbioscience, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/rooney.html
Seunarine, Ian K. Strategies for Urban Wildlife Management in Manitoba: A Case Study of the City of Winnipeg, 1994.
Smith, Craven, and Curtis. Managing Canada Geese in Urban Environments A Technical Gide. Smith, A. E., S. R. Craven, and P. D. Curtis. Managing Canada geese in urban environment. Jack Berryman Institute Publication 16, and Cornell University Cooperative Extension, Ithaca, N.Y, 1999.Retrieved from
http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/retrieve/61/%E2%80%8E
Smithsonian. "Geese Involved In Hudson River Plane Crash Were Migratory." ScienceDaily. 2009. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090608125059.htm. 
White-tailed Deer-Odocoileus virginianus. Nature Works, 2013. Retrieved from www.nhptv.org/natureworks/whitetaileddeer.htm.