One of Missouri's largest cities has a severe deer problem. A 'strategic culling' may be the only answer
A starving animal population and a rise in deer-vehicle collisions forced Wildwood officials to hire sharpshooters in the short term and rely on hunters long term.
Bettina Guignon via City of Wildwood
A quiet crisis festered throughout the nation's forests for centuries. City residents have only recently been forced to confront it.
Humans were once prey for numerous mega-sized carnivores, reptiles, and raptors. But as time marched forward, we became smarter and harder to kill. Some cultures increased their reverence for the animal kingdom, while others personified the wild as an enemy. Those driven by fear quickly used every weapon at their disposal, whether it was fire, steel, or gunpowder, to wipe out the meat eaters.
Humanity won the war against our predators; against the wolves, mountain lions, and bears. But the cost of the battle wasn't realized until generations later. Modern humans are increasingly coming face to face with the product of our victory: Deer.
With no remaining natural predators, deer populations have skyrocketed. Their high number causes numerous issues including increased deer-vehicle collisions, the spread of tick-borne diseases, and putting countless other forest species "in imminent danger of collapse."
Missouri's fifth-largest city by land is experiencing these issues first-hand and recently held a "deer management open house" with residents on Nov. 19. After trying to find solutions for years, officials have started a massive years-long cull. It may be their best bet.
Wildwood's wild deer-filled woods How deer become a problem
The aptly-named municipality of Wildwood is Missouri's fifth-largest city by land area. Numerous zones around the city have around 70 deer per square mile in densely human-populated areas, causing numerous issues over the past decade. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) estimates that a "healthy" deer population is around 20 or fewer deer per square mile.
City residents are directly experiencing the consequences of the high deer population. An estimated 1,213 deer-vehicle collisions were recorded within city limits from 2019 to 2023. St. Louis County health officials also saw a 53.1% increase in tick-borne illnesses, such as Lyme disease, Ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, from 2022 to 2023. Deer are known carriers of ticks often infected with these diseases.
High deer populations are also a threat to themselves:
- Deer illnesses like Chronic Wasting Disease spread easily when populations are booming.
- Residents also recently witnessed deer eating honeysuckle, an indication there isn't enough nutritious food in the environment and the deer population is effectively starving.
- An environment's biodiversity decreases as deer populations increase, as the animals dominate the landscape.
"One of the biggest things (residents asked us was) to reduce the amount of deer," Wildwood City Administrator Thomas Lee said. "We conducted a deer population survey ... it came back, and the data was pretty overwhelming."
About 10 years of discussion between Wildwood residents and officials resulted in the most recent deer population survey in November and December of 2020, which took place in six different geographic regions throughout the city. There, officials found the city's deer population was nearly four times the recommended population per square mile. The large number of deer seen surrounding Highway 100 and Highway 109 was especially concerning to city officials.
In response to the critically-high deer population, Wildwood officials collaborated with MDC to set a realistic target of reducing the deer population through what Lee calls a "strategic culling operation."
Dearly needed deer management How to remove countless deer
Wildwood officials knew trying to get the population down to the recommended "healthy" levels of under 20 deer per square mile would be impossible at the currently severe high levels. They, instead, set a more attainable goal of lowering the city's deer population to 40 per square mile through a "strategic culling operation."
"It's not like a managed hunt ... because that's on public land," Lee said. "The issue really comes in on giving residents a sense of safety and security in allowing an organization or the city to come on their private property and cull deer ... You want somebody who knows how to do this and who has been doing it for years."
The experts that the city partnered with were from White Buffalo Inc., a wildlife management and research nonprofit. The organization helped Wildwood form initial plans for a suburban deer management program. White Buffalo set up bait sites between Jan. 1-15 and conducted deer removal activities from Jan. 16 to Feb. 10 throughout the "Northeast 1" area of Wildwood.
"We accessed sharpshooting sites from tree stands or blinds and deer were harvested on a first-opportunity basis," White Buffalo's 2024 final report said. "Specifically, deer were harvested only when a safe opportunity presented itself, and maximal harvest efficiency would be achieved."
A total of 300 deer were harvested over the 26-day removal period, according to the organization. More than 15 deer were harvested at 42% of the sharpshooting locations. Eighty deer were harvested within a 3/8 mile radius of the intersection of Strecker and Clayton roads.
The meat didn't go to waste. Nearly 10,000 pounds of ground venison were donated to the MDC's Share the Harvest program. The rest was donated to the Saint Louis Zoo's Red Wolf Recovery Program.
White Buffalo's initial removal effort was mainly a test to develop an effective management strategy for Wildwood's deer population. For future strategic culling operations, the nonprofit made numerous recommendations, including:
- Utilizing drop nets for large groups of deer.
- Increasing bait sites throughout the city.
- Prioritizing the elimination of deer "witnesses" at shooting locations, as educated deer undermine the success of sharpshooting techniques long term.
"Overall, we view the 2024 program as a success," White Buffalo said. "It provides a good example of how the application of sharpshooting can be conducted safely, effectively, and with minimal disturbance to the community. Continual communication with municipal staff and cooperating landowners is instrumental in the success of these types of programs."
With more strategic culls, it's possible Wildwood's deer population will reach a healthy level one day. But once the population is lowered, what's to stop the deer from overpopulating again?
Hunters asked to be natural predators How to keep deer numbers down
Lee stressed that the solution to Wildwood's deer problem wouldn't be as simple as holding managed hunts, partly because the practice has already been in the city for years.
Public lands throughout the city have supported numerous managed hunts, including Babler Park, Rockwoods Reservation and Greensfelder County Park. Supporting managed hunts was even part of Wildwood's draft deer management plan constructed in 2021.
But, if White Buffalo's culling operations are largely successful and deer populations are lowered to healthy levels, costly strategic culls wouldn't be the city's ongoing solution. Lee said that long term, Wildwood would most likely be relying on the state's hunters to keep numbers down.
"The hope is that hunters will be able to maintain the population after the (strategic culls)," Lee said. "The goal is to really have hunters take back control of the work because we do have hunting happening, but it was not keeping up the pace of the actual deer growth."
To keep deer numbers down, hunter numbers will have to stay high, something that is far from a certainty in Missouri. Statewide, hunter numbers have been on a gradual decline since numbers peaked in 2012, according to data from MDC.
There were 517,618 permitted hunters at the peak, which has decreased to 474,519 as of 2022. Hunter numbers in St. Louis County have been more variable. There, numbers were largely on the incline until 2020 when there were 2,339 hunters. Since then, numbers have dropped to 2,015 as of 2023.
Relying on hunters to keep deer numbers down isn't unheard of, and Busch Conservation Area in nearby St. Charles even saw some success with the practice. The area saw a fast and large jump in its deer population, from 28 deer per square mile in 2016 to 53.4 deer per square mile in 2020.
MDC, in response to the high population, set a new hunting rule in 2022 requiring hunters to harvest at least one antlerless deer during muzzleloader-managed hunts. After that requirement was set, the area had an estimated 22.5 deer per square mile.
If hunters in Wildwood fail to keep the deer population low, and deer-vehicle collisions see another increase, Lee said more targeted removals would be in the future. White Buffalo would head into neighborhoods to remove 10 to 20 deer, rather than the over 300 they are removing during this initial cull.
"Long term, it's really going to be more so following and tracking the data, and if the data suggests we need to go in and surgically remove deer from a couple neighborhoods, that would be the future of the program," Lee said.
There is another possible solution that has seen success elsewhere in the country: reintroduction of the natural predators humans killed to near extinction. Recent research shows reintroduction efforts help regulate overabundant prey numbers and address the issues of prey "naivety," or a loss of predator awareness.
This solution, despite its sustainable nature, is also extremely controversial and often brings out intense emotions from people both for and against it. Lee said it may be a solution that's considered for Wildwood depending on the results of ongoing management practices, but it is ultimately a long way off and would be the decision of MDC.
"Deer are one thing, but potentially seeing a wolf in your backyard could be a little scary," Lee said. "I don't think the city is ready to pursue that."