Baltimore City brings out sharpshooters to reduce deer population

For the next 10 days, Baltimore's Leakin Park will be closed off during the evenings and overnights as sharpshooters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture kill deer to reduce the city's deer population.

Baltimore City officials say deer are overpopulated in the city. The city's deer management program will target three parks this month.

From Monday, March 9, through March 19, sharpshooters will kill off more than 100 deer in Leakin Park. The park will be closed during those days from 4 p.m. until 7 a.m.

Volunteers and the Baltimore City Police Department will help to clear the park so the sharpshooters can work.

Druid Hill Park in Northwest Baltimore and Herring Park in East Baltimore will follow.

The meat harvested from this operation will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank, and is estimated to create 40,000 meals.

"This problem has been going on for decades. We've let it go for far too long," said Shane Boehne, leader of the city's deer management program.

Plan to bring down the deer population

Baltimore City Rec and Parks said the deer population in parts of the city can be more than 20 times higher than what is considered normal for a forested area.

Overall, the goal is to bring the deer population to 20 per square mile. 

"If you're able to bring it down to that 20 deer per square mile, and if you basically go hands off for a little while, you'll have an increase back in the population. So we have to do constant management," Boehne said.

The project is expected to make the parks healthier as part of its effort to increase the tree canopy.

"In this era of rapid change, we want to have stable, resilient ecosystems, especially forested ecosystems," said Jerry Burges, the Johns Hopkins University Environmental Science and Studies Director. "They give us all sorts of services. But if you even value small things, like seeing a variety of birds, that's often an important thing for residents. In areas where we have really high deer densities, we see the disappearance of certain bird species."

Why sharpshooting?

Baltimore officials say sharpshooting was chosen as the method because it is cost-effective and less disruptive to surrounding communities.

"The whole point of sharp shooting is to kill these deer on impact," Boehne said. "We don't want to spook, spook these deer and make them flee the area and go out into residential areas."

Concerned Baltimore residents

Baltimore City residents have raised concerns over the city's deer-kill plan, which includes a less harsh method.

"I'm more of one who believes in taking a balanced approach, maybe sharp shooting is a percentage of how we get to the attrition, but maybe there are other modest and milder methods," said Linda Batts, with the Hanlon Improvement Association.

"When we talk about disadvantaged and marginalized communities, we're talking about changing the economic mainstream, eliminating the long standing effects of redlining that have some communities impoverished and without their basic needs, while other communities are living their best lives and have access to goods and services and the economics that make them thrive."