By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Douglas deer complaints keep rolling in. May Street resident Debbi Larsen wrote city council July 8:
“Hello, I live in Douglas and have for the last 25 years. The deer population in the last 5 years has increased 10 times the usual or more.
“I attended the meeting last year with archer Robert Rank when the city allowed him to hunt north of Wiley Road near KLSWA property — nowhere near the Lakeshore where there are hundreds of them,” she continued.
“The deer are cute, I hear tourists say, and many people say learn to live with them, but they destroy my yard, poop everywhere, walk in the street and don’t move, run in front of cars at night …
“I have seen three different sets of twins in my neighborhood so far this year, including two adolescents this afternoon chomping on brush my husband put out for pickup tomorrow. I was 30 feet away sitting in a chair and they didn’t care at all.
They also carry ticks which carry diseases. Every night I see at least 6 to 8 in my back yard. I would be glad to let the bowhunter in there this fall and have him donate the meat to a shelter.
I know it is probably a lost cause addressing this again, but I feel something really needs to be done. I am hoping this can be read at the next council meeting.”
Council did Monday night, hardly for the first time. A survey sent 1,360 Douglas residents on Winter 2022 tax bills and returned by 175 showed 87 percent of respondents had garden plants and landscaping gobbled or damaged otherwise.
Of note: 139 of 179 respondents said they saw deer in Douglas “all the time,” another 30 said “often.” How many deer did they see in a typical week? 105 said 11 or more, 32 seven to 10, 23 four to six, 12 one to three and three people said none.
Resident reactions to deer were mixed: 30 said they enjoyed seeing and having deer, 80 they liked seeing a few deer but worried about problems they cause and 60 said they regard deer as a nuisance.
Deer-vehicle collisions were concerns for 134 respondents. Next most common were personal landscape damage (131), decline in deer health due to overpopulation (96), damage to park ecosystems (93), disease transmission (77), no concern (16) and others (15).
How best to respond? Enforce state regulations banning humans from feeding deer drew the strongest response.
Next came: use nonlethal methods, like birth control, to reduce populations; use methods such as hunting; manage roadside vegetation to increase driver visibility; educate residents on deer-resistant plants; and install signs or reflector at deer crossings.
“Do nothing and let nature take its course” was least-favored among choices offered.
We live on Old Allegan Road and have the same problems with deer. As more and more new homes are built around here their habitat is disappearing.