BATTLE CREEK, Mich. \u2014 For the past 18 years, Michael Ross has lived on an acre and a half in Battle Creek.<\/p>\n
Throughout that time, Ross has seen his share of wildlife.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could get as many as 10 to 15 deer at one time,\u201d Ross told News Channel 3. \u201cThey cross the street and go in the backyard, and they feed and they hide in the big grass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ross is one of many in the area noticing the vast population of urban deer.<\/p>\n
According to Battle Creek City Commissioners, deer numbers have been a concern for residents over the past several years, especially when it comes to safety and the destruction of property.<\/p>\n
\u201cI continually get calls of complaints of the destruction of landscaping,” City Commissioner Christopher Simmons said. \u201cI had a constituent on Hamilton where a herd went on to her pool, tore the cover up and thrashing around, did about $10,000 in damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Tuesday\u2019s meeting, Commissioners looked at ways to address these concerns by inviting Randy Hines, a wildlife biologist with Michigan\u2019s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), to paint an overall picture of the population.<\/p>\n
Urban deer maintain a high reproductive rate in areas like Battle Creek, along with maintaining a high survival rate, according to Hines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe population grows exponentially very fast until it hits a biological carrying capacity,\u201d Hines said. \u201cWhich basically [means] they’re out of room to have fawns, they run out of food sources, something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s extremely hard to get populations back down, according to Hines, but there are some steps that can be taken.<\/p>\n
One option presented by Hines was exclusion, which is the use of barriers to limit deer access.<\/p>\n
Other options include growing plants deer don\u2019t like to eat in order to keep them away, or using hunting and sharpshooting programs.<\/p>\n
A solution that is not an option, according to Hines, is trapping or removing deer.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you capture and release animals like that, it is very stressful on the animal,\u201d Hines said. \u201cAnd it’s very expensive and very time consuming.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of population management, residents were fairly split.<\/p>\n
While Ross enjoys seeing the dear, he told News Channel 3 he can see where intervention may be needed. <\/p>\n
Whereas Linda Pascoe, also a resident of Battle Creek, doesn\u2019t want to see them go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the deer,\u201d Pascoe said. \u201cI know their, you know, routes and about what time they come and go.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, for Simmons, it\u2019s an issue they should all seriously consider in the best interest of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re beautiful, I get it,\u201d Simmons said. “But the property damage, the safety, the health concerns, this increasing deer population is part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BATTLE CREEK, Mich. \u2014 For the past 18 years, Michael Ross has lived on an acre and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3935,17280,17279,17275,17277,17278,79,17274,201,17276],"class_list":{"0":"post-18769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-battle-creek","9":"tag-community-intervention","10":"tag-exclusion-methods","11":"tag-population-management","12":"tag-property-damage","13":"tag-safety-concerns","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-urban-deer","16":"tag-wildlife","17":"tag-wildlife-biologist"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}