Pleasing but also a pest, deer are a target in management plan

The appearance of majestic, white-tailed deer in our parks or back yards is a powerful sight. But suburban deer can also cause car crashes, destroy expensive landscaping, and spread disease.

So, it’s probably no surprise that the City of Eden Prairie has been working to strike a balance between regal and wreckage, not just recently but for nearly 30 years, ever since a 1994 resident task force recommended active city management of the local deer herd.

The deer study done in 1994 by gathering Eden Prairie residents, city staff, and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials was in response to resident complaints about deer, costly car-deer collisions, and the loss of deer habitat due to development, says city Parks and Natural Resources Manager Matt Bourne, who is in charge of the deer management program. The task force’s findings were forwarded to the city council, and a deer management program followed.

A public hunt isn’t feasible in Eden Prairie, except in the Minnesota River Valley. So, this winter, as in past years, the city – under a permit from the DNR – has contracted with wildlife biologists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to surgically thin the herd, using a sharpshooter in city parks and conservation areas and on Eden Prairie parkland operated by the Three Rivers Park District. 

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After residents’ complaints and helicopter counts of deer during snow season have been weighed against a DNR habitat guideline of 20 to 25 deer per square mile, the city and USDA annually develop a plan that takes into account field site selection, site preparation, baiting and bait monitoring, sharpshooting services, carcass removal and transportation to a meat processor.

Once the DNR permit is secured, the USDA dispatches an armed, two-person team to Eden Prairie parks, where baited sites draw deer after dusk, typically 5-9 p.m., when the deer are most active.

Roughly 50 deer per year are shot and killed in this way, according to Bourne, who said the program’s cost to the city is around $20,000 per year. Meat from the deer is processed by the USDA and taken to food shelves.

“We’re definitely not trying to get rid of all deer in Eden Prairie,” Bourne said. “We’re just trying to get it to a manageable level where we can start to head off some of those nuisance issues or hazards. We’re trying to maintain. We’re not really trying to bring it down drastically like we had to at the beginning of the program.

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“We’ll always have the space for deer,” he added. “Suburban areas really find that there aren’t a whole lot of natural predators for deer, and that’s how their population can really spike.”

Accident-free history

The program is confined to the city’s large parks and conservation areas, as well as the Bryant Lake and Anderson Lakes regional parks operated in Eden Prairie by Three Rivers Park District.

The USDA, he added, typically monitors prospective bait sites with a movement-triggered camera to better understand patterns before sharpshooting begins. All of the activities take place in December through March, although usually the program wraps up closer to the end of February.

“The USDA, they use thermal cameras and also night vision,” said Bourne. “Most times they’ll have two-man crews where one of them is looking through those cameras for any movement other than deer, while the other would be responsible for taking the deer.”

All of the park sites have been used for years, Bourne added, and before being selected were scouted for safety considerations. “We want to stay to the areas that we know are going to be safe, and where we can do it effectively,” he said. “USDA is always in contact with our [police]dispatch, so dispatch always knows when and where they’re at.”

The program has an accident-free history, said Bourne.

It has also evolved over time. Before contracting with USDA in 2016 to do an annual program, the city had hired a private contractor every other year. The program’s sophistication has also grown by partnering with Three Rivers Park District, which conducts the aerial surveys, and by conferring with nearby cities like Bloomington and Minnetonka, which also have programs.

Statistics on deer-car collisions aren’t always reliable but, according to the city, the number of deer-car collisions in Eden Prairie has fallen from nearly 280 per year before the program to the current estimate of 30 per year. AAA says the average price of repairing a vehicle following a deer collision is $5,000 and rising.

But, hazards and nuisances can’t be blamed on deer alone. Officials say residents who are providing artificial feed to attract deer are contributing to the problems.

“That’s one of the biggest issues we find in Eden Prairie,” said Bourne. “A lot of the resident complaints we get is because one of their neighbors is feeding the deer. That changes the behavior of the deer. They tend to go not too far from those supplemental food sources, so they stick around in the neighborhood and once the corn pile is gone they start feeding on the landscape plants. And that also makes them less wary of humans, and the chances of a deer-vehicle collision go way up.”

The DNR in 2020 expanded a ban on feeding and attracting deer to include a number of new counties, including Hennepin, in part to counter the spread of the fatal chronic wasting disease in the animals. As part of this, the DNR wants people who feed birds or small mammals to do so in a manner that prevents deer access, such as placing the food at least six feet above ground level.

While some people may oppose deer management or its tactics, Bourne says “the vast majority of phone calls I get are from residents interested in the program being done in their neighborhood because of certain issues.”

DNR has key role

It’s the DNR that has most of the responsibility for deer management in Minnesota, and it goes without saying that it’s a topic of debate. Public perceptions about the appropriate size of deer herds vary greatly. The state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor evaluated the program in 2016 and offered a number of recommendations, one of which was to have the DNR develop a formal written deer management plan.

Such a plan, covering 2019 to 2028, is now in place and includes a goal of having hunters harvest 200,000 deer per year in Minnesota. It points out that deer hunting, with $500 million in annual economic activity, is an important part of Minnesota’s $14 billion a year outdoor recreation economy. But, it notes as well that, because of their size, high reproductive ability, and role as disease vectors, deer also have a negative impact on natural resources.

“Deer management is inherently complex,” states the report, adding, “By striving to use the best available data and processes, DNR staff use continuous improvement methodologies to make decisions. To make a good decision and account for needed information, we frequently ask the questions, ‘What is the problem?’, ‘Why is it happening?’, ‘How can we fix it?’, and ‘Did we achieve our goals?’ These are important questions to ask as potential management actions are considered, assessed, implemented and evaluated.”

Scott Noland, an area wildlife manager in the DNR’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, said about a dozen municipalities and two park districts have special permits this winter that are similar to what Eden Prairie has obtained. A larger number of cities have a deer management program, and some of these plans include archery deer hunts.

In his eight years in the role, Noland said, the DNR has “seen some pretty positive results” from the management programs in terms of reduced deer-car collisions and complaints about nuisance deer.

As for the Twin Cities-area deer population overall, “It seems it is staying pretty stable; increasing just a little bit,” he said.