Baltimore City parks address deer population with USDA-trained sharpshooters
Baltimore City Recreation and Parks plans to introduce a new program to manage the deer population by utilizing firearms.
"So in many of our parks and the forest that we have here in Baltimore City, we see these areas that are being highly damaged by deer and browsed by deer eating activities," explained Shane Boehne, the city recreation and parks deer management program lead.
Boehne explained that the deer population is a bigger issue than most people think.
"The earliest known acknowledgement of that has been since 1999, and we have some internal management drafts that came out in 2014 and 2016 that got our program kind of initially started," Boehne explained. "In our forestry division, we have seen evidence of increasing deer-related issues in the city."
From parks to TV Hill, they are everywhere, causing issues for many people.
"We have seen evidence of increasing deer-related issues in the city, both damage to our forest understories, creating lots of damage to people's homes and garden spaces, and we've also seen a number of deer vehicle collisions every single year happening in Baltimore City around a lot of our parks that are occupied by deer."
What's the plan?
Starting in March, trained firearms experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will enter three designated parks after dark to eliminate as many deer as possible before April 15.
These designated parks include:
- Druid Hill Park
- Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park
- Herring Run Park
"We are going to be conducting our deer control efforts with the USDA, who have wildlife biologists who are specifically trained at utilizing firearms to remove the deer," said Boehne.
According to the program's website, the partnership will be with trained wildlife biologists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS), who have firearms expertise and follow national best practices.
When management activities are happening, parks will be temporarily closed to keep residents and staff safe.
Boehne says this is not recreational hunting. Sharpshooters are experts, trained to complete the job since hunting isn't much of an option in Baltimore City.
According to the Baltimore City's Recreation and Parks website, residents may only hunt on private property with bows, and at least 150 yards from an occupied building.
"We're also making sure that we are discharging the firearms in adequate areas that have a backdrop, so that's basically just an area that minimizes [the] likelihood of ricochet. And we're also making sure that we are staying far away from any occupied structures, like residents, homes, or businesses," said Boehne.
Restore and protect the environment
Rec and Parks officials say their hope is that the program will help restore and protect wooded environments and help the community.
"Once all the deer are processed, we're going to be able to donate that back to the Maryland food bank. And if we're able to reach our harvest goal for the year, we'll be able to provide about 40,000 servings here to Baltimore City residents in need," Boehne said.
Other places in Maryland, such as Howard, Montgomery, and Baltimore Counties, have similar programs.
"We want to make sure that people have quality experiences in our park areas, and one of the ways that we can do that is by providing additional forest regeneration in these areas, "said Boehne.
To learn more about the deer management program, visit the Rec and Parks website.