Arlington County staff are recommending hiring professional sharpshooters to reduce local deer populations.
The Dept. of Parks and Recreation’s draft recommendations on how to prevent white-tailed deer herds from causing further harm to Arlington ecosystems, released last week, follow a new consultant report on potential deer management methods.
Guidance to have sharpshooters fire down on deer from tree stands at night comes despite ongoing opposition from the Animal Welfare League of Arlington and other advocates of non-lethal population control methods, such as surgical sterilization.
“This [sharpshooting] method, also recommended by our consultant, White Buffalo Inc., more quickly and cost effectively reduces deer populations relative to surgical sterilization, and has been shown in peer-reviewed literature, as well as operations regionally, to reduce deer population sufficiently to support forest regeneration,” staff said in an online presentation.
Negative impacts of deer overpopulation are widespread in Arlington’s parks, according to White Buffalo’s report. Some 88% of examined plant stems showed damage from browsing deer, while local plant cover in parks’ understories ranged from 21% at Grandma’s Creek to 65% at Fort Bennett Park.
“The results from browse impact survey efforts presented here do not bode well for the future forest health of Arlington’s parks,” the report says. “Without active deer management, ecological health of Arlington’s natural areas will continue to degrade. Even with deer mitigation efforts, it may take years or more for plant recovery because of the legacy effects of deer overbrowsing.”
County recommendations call for using sharpshooters “to immediately reduce deer populations by 100-125 deer in county-owned parks.” Hunters would operate outside of park hours, using silencers and non-lead bullets.
A second round of public engagement on this topic is currently underway. Respondents have until July 19 to submit feedback, and final county recommendations are expected later this summer.
Among the fiercest opponents of sharpshooting is the AWLA, which has argued that hunting deer would be disruptive in a county as densely populated as Arlington.
“The recommendation from the Deer Project team is excessive given the number of reported deer and the browsing levels in Arlington County,” the organization said in a statement. “We are disappointed at the planned policy to cull up to 125 deer with sharpshooters, which would represent over 40% of Arlington’s surveyed deer population.”
The group noted that in the first round of community feedback, 63% of respondents supported reducing deer populations by surgically sterilizing females. About 43% of respondents said they support culling deer through professional sharpshooting.
“We urge citizens to reach out to their elected County officials and voice their concerns that this policy proposal is wrong for the community,” the AWLA said.
While the White Buffalo study identified sterilization as a possible alternative to sharpshooting, county staff recommend against it.
“Surgical sterilization is considered experimental by the Virginia State Department of Wildlife Resources, has a delayed benefit and higher cost compared to professional sharpshooting, and lacks evidence that it could reduce the deer population sufficiently enough to promote forest health,” a county presentation says.
Staff also recommend the use of fencing and repellants to protect priority plant spaces in small areas, as well as additional monitoring of deer populations and ongoing studies of deer’s impact on parks.
Introducing sharpshooting to Arlington would require an amendment to county code.
