Early Shabbos morning, my husband was walking to shul when he saw four huge deer in front of our neighbor’s house about to cross the street in front of him. He froze, and the deer froze. Waiting for something to happen, my husband stared at them; they stared back. Then he decided that either he would get to shul on time or, G-d forbid, get attacked by a deer. When he shared this story, he made a joke about it, probably to lighten it up for me, by singing “On his way to Daf Yomi, Zaidy gets run over by a deer.” We laughed, but we both knew that this incident wasn’t funny. While we appreciate the sleek beauty of Hashem’s creation and enjoy seeing them in our yard, we know that the free-running deer in our community are causing problems that need to be solved.
In the last century, White-tailed
deer were almost extinct in the U.S. Then, in the late 1900s, they made a
recovery. Herds of deer now appear across the country, some colliding with
cars, stripping forests of their ground cover, and carrying ticks that cause
Lyme disease.
Shane Boehne, Wildlife
Conservation Analyst for Baltimore City Recreation and Parks (BCRP), hopes to
decrease these problems with the city’s new Deer Program. He states that it’s
important to acknowledge that managing the deer population, including using
animal birth control, is a sensitive topic for many. This is being taken into
consideration as the deer team apply recent scientific research to strengthen
their program.
Boehne shares that other cities
and counties, including Montgomery and Baltimore counties, have established
deer programs, each with its own solutions. Boehne and his team have gained
from what others have shared with them. As the new kids (or fawns) on the
block, the team has started gathering their own information and welcomed
resident participation in summer information sessions on deer management.
Recently, Caren Cutler and Alan
Goldfeder, who head the Cross Country Cheswolde Neighborhood Association,
emailed a list of topics covered in the BCRP information sessions, including deer
biology, deer management options, and the decision-making framework being used
by the City.
To learn more about the work of
Baltimore’s Deer Program, I posed several questions to Shane Boehne, which he
readily answered.
* * *
What is your role as a wildlife conservation analyst?
At a foundation level, my role as a wildlife conservation
analyst is to help Baltimore arrive at deer management decisions that will help
the City maximize the health of the environment, minimize deer-human conflicts,
minimize costs associated with deer, and minimize social issues related to
deer. My duties on a daily basis vary from community meetings, forest
vegetation monitoring, deer counts, and of course, deer management planning.
What are the major suggestions for how we can curb the
deer problem in residential as well as commercial areas?
Earlier this year, we distributed our baseline questionnaire
and found the top five deer-related conflicts in Baltimore. They were, in no
particular order: 1) damage to forests, 2) damage to garden plants, 3) damage
to landscaping plants, 4) the City government being slow to act on residents’
deer-related concerns, and 5) deer-vehicle accidents.
Throughout the course of 2025, our
team has collected additional input from residents, experts, and community
leaders to identify the most optimal path forward to reducing the negative
impacts of deer on humans without removing deer as well as options that reduce
the deer population. These include but are not limited to managing habitat,
fencing, educating residents, getting residents to stop feeding deer,
repellents, infrastructure changes, scaring deer from yard spaces,
sharpshooting, hunting, or doing nothing. A report from the Deer Program
will come out soon on what are acceptable and not acceptable options among
residents.
What makes for the best chance for success?
The best chance for success lies in consistency. Deer
management is not a one-time event; it is a process that must be repeated.
Every year, Baltimore has more deer entering the population, whether from fawns
being born (often twins) or from deer venturing into the area from other places,
like Baltimore County. As a result, deer-related conflicts will continue to
occur, and it is important that we maintain consistent efforts.
Our Deer Management Program will
conduct deer counts every year to monitor trends in the population. Annual deer
counts will help our team identify whether we are close to desired deer
densities – about 20 deer per square mile is recommended by the Maryland
Department of Natural Resources – and we can modify our efforts as needed.
Why are the parks being tackled first?
Parks are being tackled first for several reasons. Our
program is part of the Baltimore City Recreation and Parks’ Forestry Division.
As such, we manage park property. Additionally, we are funded by the Maryland
Community Forestry Catalyst Fund, which supports work in parks. Our park spaces
are also where we’ve seen most of the ecological damage occur because of deer
eating the forest plants. Our Forestry Division is in charge of ensuring the
longevity of park forests, and deer management is one way that we can protect
those forests.
By controlling the number of deer in the parks, won’t
that cause us to see more deer in our neighborhoods?
I want to provide a bit of context first. Deer frequently
move between parks and residential areas. The distance they move depends on the
time of year and where they can find food or shelter. Researchers have studied
their movements in communities and have found that deer home-ranges can be as
small as 62 acres and as large as 884 acres. It therefore makes sense for so
many residents to see deer every day, especially when many of our parks are
small. If our team were to control the number of deer, there would be fewer
deer moving between parks and residential areas, and residents would likely see
fewer deer in their neighborhood.
What will be done in the parks and by whom?
We are finishing community focus groups this fall and winter
and will be putting the final touches on a Deer Management Plan that will
outline the work and strategies for each designated area. We’ll be able to
share more about the plan once it’s finished.
For more information see Baltimore City’s Deer Management
Info Session recorded on Zoom at https://youtu.be/KNwpfoBNZmo. To get
involved, contact Shane Boehne, MS, Wildlife Conservation Analyst at deer.program@baltimorecity.gov.
