![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/43175895-603b-446a-9916-7e49123b9fbe-5PPDEERANDEROSION.transfer_frame_1942.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n(WJAR) \u2014 The local deer population has been climbing steadily for several decades, and researchers believe their growing presence could be playing a small role in accelerating coastal erosion.<\/p>\n
Martin Feehan, a deer and moose biologist with MassWildlife, said as the deer population has grown in Southern New England, large amounts of deer have been settling in coastal areas where there are few predators and an ample supply of food.<\/p>\n
“One of the things that’s always sort of surprising to many folks is how well-adapted deer are to live in those environments,” Feehan said. “We are at a point where deer are starting to directly impact a lot of the coastal areas.”<\/p>\n
Feehan and MassWildlife have been researching the unexpected ways this climbing coastal deer population could be taking a toll on shorelines, and it all centers around the well-worn trails these deer blaze.<\/p>\n
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The local deer population has been climbing steadily for several decades, and researchers believe their growing presence could be playing a small role in accelerating coastal erosion. (WJAR)<\/p>\n
“Those trails start to take away vegetation directly, and they also create cleave points along beach cliffside edges, where the edges can then fall further into the coastlines,” Feehan said. “In salt marshes, the deer trails themselves start to compress a lot of the soil, and that really starts to impact the natural hydrology of the site.”<\/p>\n
While other researchers looking into coastal erosion in places like Block Island told NBC 10 News that deer-related impacts are somewhat minor, Feehan said it’s just one example of the outsized influence this climbing deer population can hold over its surroundings.<\/p>\n
“They are able to have this really immense impact on the ecosystems they live in, and it’s really important from a conservation standpoint that we address that,” Feehan said.<\/p>\n
To get the population in check, hunting opportunities have been expanded in coastal wildlife management areas in Massachusetts, and MassWildlife also has a ‘Share the Harvest’ program that allows hunters to donate their deer to local food pantries.<\/p>\n
The local deer population has been climbing steadily for several decades, and researchers believe their growing presence could be playing a small role in accelerating coastal erosion.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The program was particularly successful in Martha’s Vineyard.<\/p>\n
“You have hunters being able to go out and spend time recreating, but also being able to feed their families and other families,” Feehan said.<\/p>\n
Along with efforts to get more hunters out in the fields, Feehan said spreading the word about all of these deer-related dilemmas like coastal erosion is important work as well.<\/p>\n
“Trying to understand and be able to educate the public on those impacts that are not often thought about – it’s much easier to see the damage in your backyard, in plants you might be growing, but there are also all these really major impacts,” Feehan said. “This is one more stressor to an ecosystem that’s already dealing with a lot of stress.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WJAR) \u2014 The local deer population has been climbing steadily for several decades, and researchers believe their growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-885598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885598","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=885598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}