Link Ahead with the City of Dublin, Ohio
Link Ahead with the City of Dublin, Ohio
A Deer Management Plan Rooted In Safety, Citizen Input and Peaceful Coexistence
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Deer are part of what makes Dublin beautiful, peaceful and ultimately connect us to the outdoors in myriad ways. That is, until the herd gets large enough that issues stop being rare and start feeling routine. We sit down with Barbara Ray, Dublin’s Nature Education Coordinator, and Greg Hitzhusen, an Ohio State University expert in human values and wildlife management. Both help to explain why so many Ohio communities are now talking about deer population control, deer aggression, and the health of local ecosystems.
First, it's important to understand how we got here with deer becoming more habituated to people: increased property damage, deer vehicle collisions, and a growing risk of defensive encounters during fawning season, especially dog walkers. Barbara shares what residents can do immediately from no feeding the animals to deer-resistant gardening and simple hazing. We also clear up a common myth: feeding deer can actively harm them, because corn and other high-starch foods don’t match their natural diet.
Greg zooms out to the broader story of urban deer overpopulation, including why predators and hunting pressure don’t function the same way in suburbs. We also walk through the hard questions communities ask next: why relocation and sterilization usually fail in open suburban landscapes, and why targeted removal has become a widely used tool. A tool, in fact, over the course of hundreds of cumulative years in communities across Ohio, has never led to a single human injury. Not one.
If you care about humane wildlife management, public safety, and healthy parks, this conversation will give you clearer language, better facts, and practical next steps. Subscribe for more City of Dublin updates and share this with a neighbor to ensure they're informed on this important issue.
Why Deer Management Matters
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome to Link Ahead, the City of Dublin podcast. Today we're talking about a topic that is not just happening in Dublin, but in communities all across Ohio, and that is deer management.
SPEAKER_01That's right, Bruce. And while we know a lot of our residents love seeing deer around Dublin, seeing them in our communities, our parks, and you know, we do too, but they can create serious problems for our ecosystems and public safety.
SPEAKER_02We are going to be hearing from various wildlife experts on this topic, beginning with Barbara Ray, the City of Dublin Nature Education Coordinator. Welcome to LinkAhead.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me. All right, Barbara, welcome back. And as Dublin's Nature Education Coordinator, you're here to help educate us. Many people think of deer as beautiful animals, and they are. So why can having too many deer become a problem both for residents and the environment?
SPEAKER_00So deer are obviously a normal part of our Ohio landscape. In urban settings, they really have unlimited food, water, and shelter. So they reproduce at a pretty high rate. And eventually we get to a place where the community is suffering from some more extensive damage to property. They do present a safety concern on the roads, of course. And in some cases, as they become habituated or used to people, they also then can become aggressive during their reproductive seasons and especially fawning when they're defending babies. So, you know, as much as we want to enjoy them, we need to give them their space, enjoy them at a distance, and uh not try to interact with them too much. So those are some things we're trying to help community and and residents understand is uh not feeding them, things like that. Right.
SPEAKER_01And I know this program is very science-driven, very data-driven. And, you know, the aggressive deer encounters that we have been able to track here in Dublin is one of the big reasons for this program. And, you know, you're out there every day,
When Deer Learn To Attack
SPEAKER_01all year round, dealing with this. Talk a little bit about some of the aggressive deer behavior that you have witnessed or talked to residents about.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So in about 2016 was when I started first hearing from some residents that they were being stalked or chased by deer while they were, you know, walking in the parks. And our first official uh report was from Brandon Park. And what happens is when a doe has, maybe she's had some experience having to fend a fawn from a coyote or even a roaming dog in the woods that was off-leash, um, they start to become sensitized to canines, especially, uh, or any kind of encroachment near their fawns, and they start behaving preemptively. So instead of addressing a threat that's actually a threat, they start to perceive threats ahead of time. Wow. To the point where they're going into a yard where a dog is innocently, you know, just walking around using his last potty break for the night or something. And they may go after that particular dog who's not even aware that the deer is there. The deer pass this behavior on to their fawns who observe how mom handles triggers in her environment. And then those fawns continue that same behavior chain. So after a this nine or 10-year period, we have a pretty large population of fawns now that have grown up with this knowledge of this is how I should defend if uh a dog or a person is around that's you know scary to me or is too close to my baby. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Now we've been discussing this issue in Dublin for several years. What are some of the steps the city has taken before getting to this point?
SPEAKER_00One of the most important things we've been doing all along is educating the public about, especially particular seasons in the uh May when fawns start being born, uh, for people to give deer their space. And if you see a doe on the path or walking toward you, turn around and go the other way, things like that, basic behavior. Um, we've also uh done a lot of education about feeding wildlife. So this feeding issue really needs some history because we've controlled geese in Dublin when we passed the no waterfowl feeding ordinance back in 2008. So Dublin had a huge goose problem. And we were uh addling eggs in about 75 nests in the city on city property. The last five years we've only had to addle three, about three nests. That's how effective it's been, just eliminating feeding, and then also we, you know, naturalized.
SPEAKER_02All right, what does addle mean? I need to look at it. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh basically shaking an egg before it grows to a developmental stage where it's starting to become a bird inside the egg.
SPEAKER_04All right, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Yeah, she's here to educate. I know. So that no feeding is one of our best management programs for managing wildlife population and habituation. Council passed the No Wildlife Feeding Ordinance to extend that idea to all these other animals that can create problems, or in the case of deer, already have been creating some problems. But this also will be very beneficial for animals like wild turkey. If we, you know, ever get wild turkey populations in the city. Uh, you know, feed is gonna have to stop or they will take over. So people will be glad for the other animals. Um so the no feed ordinance is uh was highly um publicized
Education And The No-Feeding Ordinance
SPEAKER_00in all kinds of media outlets of the city, and and there's still a lot of residents not even aware of it. Um so a neighbor may contact me and say, hey, my neighbor's got a box of corn out every night. And so we send out more educational material to those uh property owners specifically, explaining why we want to, you know, have them stop feeding. Um so that continues as well. We also have uh city council has an advisory count uh committee. Um, and that group spent, I guess, two years, maybe even more than two years, researching all these aspects about ways to manage deer.
SPEAKER_02What you're saying is we haven't done this in a vacuum. You know, we've done surveys, we've reached out. It's not like all of a sudden we decided we're gonna do this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we've done deer population surveys um using drones and heat heat sensory uh technology to kind of count them, literally. Um and we've also surveyed the community on a couple different occasions. The most recent was uh the January, I think, survey that went out to every resident, actually, had the opportunity to respond to that.
SPEAKER_01And the and the majority said that we do have a problem and they want the city to do more to control it and that they would submit. That's right, what we're about to do. So yeah. Uh so regardless of where residents stand on management strategies, what are some things that people can do right now to reduce conflicts with deer? We talked about the no-feeding ordinance, but other than that, how can they avoid conflicts?
SPEAKER_00Um, some of the conflict avoidance is really knowing what who the deer are in your neighborhood and they get to know, get to know. Um, and a lot of neighborhoods, they do know their deer. They know about what time they're gonna come through their yards. Um, so if you are walking dogs and the deer are in the back, a lot of residents are taking their pup out front. Um, because of deer aggression issues in some areas, people unfortunately have had to actually get in their car to take their dog away from the neighborhood to a different place to be able to walk their dog. Um, but anyway, just you know, at least giving the deer their space when you know they're there. They're usually, you know, moving through on a territorial run that they they have every night. Um, planting uh plants that are less favorable to deer. They don't like things that are fuzzy, prickly, bitter, uh thorny. Um, we have some neighbors in the city who have beautiful gardens that are rarely touched by deer because they're using mostly deer-resistant plants. Now, people need to go into that kind of gardening knowing a deer will eat anything if it wants to eat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We've all been there.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04Don't buy hostiles.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But it is possible. And then also hazing them, um, you know, if they're really causing some trouble and you happen to see it, chase them out of there. And a lot of times, you know, just spraying a water hose at them is probably one of the most effective because they they do perceive that as potential danger. Sometimes if you just go out there and wave your arms at them, they just kind of look at you like, are you take my picture now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we should have people, you know, do selfie videos of their hazing techniques and have like a competition for the best deer hazing that we have. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And part of that is think about all these baby deer born in the city, they grow up with noise, lights, cars, dogs barking at them. I mean, every can mechanical machines, you know, every conceivable thing that should scare a wild animal, they're they're just used to it because they've grown up with it. So it's not as easy as we might think to chase off a deer that's well, and you that's exactly right.
SPEAKER_02What you talked about earlier about the mom showing him the way, like they're they're almost like squirrels now, where they're just like running around. And it's weird to see that evolution.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there are a lot of them. And we talked a lot about the aggressive deer. So, what do we want people to do if they see, if they have an encounter with an aggressive deer?
SPEAKER_00Right. So obviously prevention is really the best thing, meaning if you're going for a walk, uh, especially if you have young children with you and pets, is to uh an umbrella is one of the most effective defenses for wildlife because they don't know what it is. And they make those nice little pop-up umbrellas that you can even clip to your belt. They're real small. Uh, a really brightly patterned one is nice, like checkers or stripes, because uh pattern, contrasting pattern to wildlife is more disturbing than like a solid color. And that way, you know, a deer is approaching, you're backing up and it keeps advancing, you're gonna pop that umbrella open and they'll run away. They may not run away, but they're gonna stop.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00And we had a uh we've had several situations where people did have an umbrella with them because they had come to the programs, I think, and uh were able to stop a deer from advancing on them, even though the deer kind of kept them cornered on a porch. Uh the deer didn't come any closer. So, you know, having a little plan, a spray bottle, a plant spray bottle, um, you know, something like that. But in the event that one's approaching, you definitely want to get uh back up, keep your eye on the deer, get behind a tree or a car or something safe. Sometimes people do have to retreat to a neighbor's porch for safety. Um and a and a deer may corner you there for a while before she gives up.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about deer?
SPEAKER_00You know, think that the deer are just naturally wild and that they'll
Everyday Ways To Prevent Conflicts
SPEAKER_00move out of the way when we advance or try to chase them off, and that's not true, of course. Uh lots of people think that deer need us to help feed them.
SPEAKER_01Um what I've heard, they have quite the buffet around here, just with the landscape.
SPEAKER_00Wildlife has been doing its thing for you know, long time, a lot longer than humans have been on the planet. But they um they also have a different kind of digestive system than we do. And a lot of the things that people put out for them are not even foods that are good for them. So they're normally going to be eating browse, uh, woody material. In the winter, they're gonna eat a lot of acorns. Um, these are highly, highly rough, rough and roughage type foods that their digestive system handles, and uh they can break down cellulose uh in, you know, that we can't do. If someone's feeding them corn or pelleted food, those are high starch, high carbohydrate foods that some deer will get sick and get bloat a few weeks later and actually can die from that. Wow. If nothing else, they get really bad, you know, colicky stomach aches. So a lot of times I don't think we realize the harm that we might be doing to wildlife just because of the the types of foods we're giving them have nothing to do with their natural diets and what they've been designed to eat. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you do not want to give them that iceberg lettuce that's in your reverator. Won't do it now because for the deer population. So you've done a great job about talking about what people can do to help the problem and what the city has done over the last 10 years. And now we're going to a new phase of the program that is going to include targeted removal. We're going to talk a little bit about that more later, but talk from your perspective. What does a successful deer management program look like?
SPEAKER_00A successful program involves the whole community as well as surrounding communities and keeping that deer population at a level that the ecosystem can keep regenerating because they do eat the understory. And most parks you go to in Dublin, there's not a very many plants on the floor of the forest because the the deer are plentiful enough. We want to also, for safety reasons, reduce this problem of all this. We didn't have this deer aggression in the city until very recently. And that population kind of explosion over the years has led to this trickle down of behavior that will only continue. The main goal is to change the deer's behavior and outlook on humans. And when we put pressure on them as predators, um, that gets the deer kind of thinking, hmm, maybe I don't want to do this. Um so that behavior change is really one of the main goals. Communities had tried uh years ago with a relocation program, and deer are an one of those species that their fight or flight response is so extreme that even when you try to sedate them, um, their their bodies are still going.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of, I think it was 70% uh of the deer died in those relocation programs just from the stress of being caught and even though they were anesthetized. Right. Um, so it's very low success rate in doing that. We also have the issue of uh some deer diseases, right, in the in the state of um chronic wasting disease and hemorrhagic disease. If you start moving deer around, you're gonna spread those things further and further into areas they don't even exist yet. Um also just deer are everywhere. So you're putting deer in a in a habitat that's already owned by some herds
What Success Looks Like Long Term
SPEAKER_00of deer in those areas. One of the questions that always comes up is a sterilization program. Yeah. Why don't we spay the deer or or give them a shot that keeps them from reproducing? Again, those things are pretty useful in a closed environment. I know they've been doing that on Long Island, New York. The deer can't really get in and out of Long Island. Not really. So uh maybe a city that's surrounded by a river and a mountain or something could do it. Um so in Ohio, you can only do that under research permits. Um and again, with immigration and immigration of deer in and out of your city, it's not really going to be very effective. It's also extremely expensive. It's about $1,500 a deer. And you have to, if you're going to spay deer, it's one time. But if you're using the chemical uh reproductive control, you have to, you know, find that deer again every every year.
SPEAKER_02How do communities know when a deer population has reached the level where intervention should be considered?
SPEAKER_00One is social tolerance, and that's where the community has just had enough of car accidents or property damage or deer aggression uh activity. And then there is actually the ecosystem, um you know, where you just have an overpopulation where you'll start to see what's called a browse line, and everywhere you look will be about a six-foot line where there's no greenery from that point down to the ground.
SPEAKER_02So they're eating everything.
SPEAKER_00And you'll also then, of course, start seeing deer that are thin. Um, you'll see a lot more herpes virus, and those are the deer that get those funny warts on their bodies, uh, especially around the head. Um those types of viruses will start spreading like wildfire because the deer's immune systems get weak when they become weak or stressed, and nutritional stress will also usually slow or halt reproduction.
SPEAKER_01Um I know you were talking about there were some concerns about the the waste of the deer that it's going to the landfill, and that's not the case in this program, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. These targeted removal programs that USDA uh animal plant health inspection service professionals conduct, the cities arrange for those deer that they're targeting and removing to go to a processor. And then that meat is ground up into usually one or two pound, I don't know what you call, like when you buy hamburger at the store in a little uh package. And then that goes to the food pantry. And in Ohio, where cities have been doing this type of program, people that use the food pantries love the venison. They can't wait until the next batch of venison. So certainly this program is not going to harm the deer herd. It will still be here. People will still enjoy their deer, they'll still see baby deer in the spring, in the summer. Those things aren't going to change. The main thing we're trying to change is the deer behavior so that they're less likely to um be coming right up to people and difficult to manage as far as their aggression. Um, that will be the main thing. And then that herd level, in order to maintain it at that level, this is a program that needs to go on pretty continuously because of reproduction. So the herd size will kind of stay the same. We just want it to be a little bit smaller the way it was, say, 15, 20 years ago, where there was very few complaints about deer. Right. And we had very few car accidents and car damage from deer, things like that.
SPEAKER_01And you've talked about this a little bit already, but you know, people shouldn't expect change overnight or even after one season. You talked about sustaining it. It's gonna take multiple years before people are starting to see the the evidence of any um success here. And like you said, with other communities working together. That's really important, right?
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah, initially, I think um certain areas, uh, some of the public lands where we were doing the program, we may see some immediate reduction in actual numbers of deer in that area. There may be some behavior change as the deer get, hmm, I don't know about this. Right. Um, but yes, in general, you're talking about a three or four-year period before you see some major changes in those behaviors, actual numbers of property damage and aggression issues.
SPEAKER_02What do you say to residents that are like, you know what, deer were here first, and we moved in and we are killing their ecosystem? What do you say to that?
SPEAKER_00Well, biologically, that's actually sort of the opposite. Wherever you have built environments, wildlife such as deer, raccoons, squirrels, opossums, cottontail rabbits, actually their population density is much, much higher than in a rural area. So they take advantage of the protection of that urban setting. They also have tons of food and shelter available to them. They have safe places to raise their babies, whether it's in your chimney, under your shed, um, or in the pine trees in the back of your house. They just don't have to worry about too much danger uh where they raise their kids. So it's you know, the city is a safe place for wildlife to raise their families. Right.
SPEAKER_01You know, we we've created a great habitat with a buffet of delicious plants for them to eat. Yeah. Um, if residents take away one thing from today's conversation, what would you hope it to be?
SPEAKER_00I would say our our goal is peaceful coexistence with wildlife and deer. And that almost always is going to require some kind of management plan for certain species so that we can maintain that balance and also keep our habitat and our ecosystem healthy, as well as provide public safety for everybody. And it's safer for the deer, too, if they're not, you know, running across the road because there's so many of them.
SPEAKER_02All right, Barbara, we can have you on every week, I have a feeling, because you are and and Lindsay, I say this all the time. I'm amazed at how Dublin just gets this congregation of really wealthful knowledge of employees. And Barbara, you are a treat to talk to. Oh, thank you. And thank you so much for joining us on Lincoln Head.
SPEAKER_01You're welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been fun. And for the
How Ohio Ended Up With Too Many
SPEAKER_01second part of our conversation, unfortunately, Bruce is not with us today because he's at jury duty, but we do have with us Greg Heitsussen, associate professor with the Ohio State University of Environment and Natural Resources, one of Central Ohio's foremost experts on urban deer management. Thank you so much for being with us today, Greg.
SPEAKER_03My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Well, we heard from Barbara about some of the challenges that an environment and an abundance of deer population can create for the ecosystem, the environment, public safety. Help us understand from a broader perspective why are more communities finding themselves having this conversation now than maybe 10, 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is something that's cropped up in the last 20, 30 years and become more of a problem than people might have realized, not just across the Midwest, but the whole nation, in fact. But if we back up for some deeper perspective, go back to the early 1900s. Um, John Seapek, who's a wildlife ecologist for uh Cleveland Metro Parks, came and did a presentation about deer 101. How did it get this way in Ohio? Um and I learned a lot from that. And one of the things he pointed out was 1906, I think it was, there were almost no deer in Ohio.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_03In fact, to the best of anyone's knowledge, there were nine deer left in Ohio. And if you wanted to see them, they were in the Cleveland Zoo.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_03So we had through you know, logging and habitat destruction and through unrestricted hunting, including market hunting, so selling the meat, uh, populations had just crashed to zero, basically. All right, so start with that. That's a crisis. And you're like, oh my gosh, no deer. Um so that enter in the North American wildlife conservation model of licenses and fees and permits and regulations and hunting seasons and all this kind of thing and habitat restoration. And the success story was we built our deer populations back up so that by, you know, post-World War II we had a thriving deer hunting culture and deer populations at high levels. And okay, sounds great, right? But then I guess what nobody really thought about was wait, what's the upper limit of that? And when you are in suburban areas, there's a couple of different factors that all conspire to lead to huge deer populations. One of them is there's no predators left either. We got rid of all the deer, but we got them back, and we brought back wild turkeys and other things like that. But we didn't bring back wolves, we didn't bring back black bears, we didn't bring back bobcats, lynx, the other reasonable predators of deer. So there's no predators out there. Suburban areas, there's generally no hunting. And so, and on top of that, we have landscaping and gardens, which is just this lovely smorgasboard, right? Right for deer. And so it turns out that in natural forested areas, there's like four deer per square kilometer in a natural forest. But in suburban areas, there's 44 deer per square kilometer. Wow. Right. So we've actually created the conditions where you can have 10 times the normal amount of deer on the landscape because we've provided perfect conditions for them to overpopulate. Right. So it just kind of snuck up on us. We weren't really paying attention to that. And next thing we know, you got more and more complaints about problems with deer. And what's going on? It's a success story. We've got deer, you know. Um, so I think that's what's been happening over time.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's talk about some of those problems. Where we are now when the deer population grows beyond what an area can sustainably support, what happens to the ecosystem?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right. I mean, we think of human deer conflicts as a thing people start to notice, but there's sort of these less noticeable ecosystem impacts. And the city of Dublin's been actually paying more attention to that probably than most. Um, but Barbara mentioned that six-foot browse line. If you look across a field at the tree line and you're like, huh, how come there's no leaves, anything lower than six feet, right? Because the deer are craning their necks and eating everything six feet and below, you see things like that. But even more than that, it's this over-browsing of pretty much anything that's within reach of them. So that's understory forbes, your wildflowers, your native wildflowers, things like that are getting eaten out. You've got your shrubs, native shrubs as well, and any small trees trying to regenerate the little saplings are getting eaten as well. So they're uh taking away a lot of the regeneration on the on the forest floor. Now that has repercussions all the way up, you know, the trophic chain, if you will, because if you're losing all this native biodiversity in the plants, you've got less of your invertebrates and other, you know, the basis of the food chain. So that worked its way up. And on top of that, if you're losing all these plants, plants' roots hold the soil, and that helps stop erosion and improves water quality. So you've got all of these compounding factors that come together. And essentially, with this ongoing larger than normal deer herd, you're sort of beating down some of the ecosystem services and goods that you would normally come from that native biodiversity. So it's it's subtle. And if you're someone who studies ecology or you know all your wildflowers, stuff like that, you might notice that. For the rest of us, we you know, we wouldn't know anything different, right? It just kind of sort of looks like it's always looked to us. But uh uh you can really see it if you look at the um some of the metro parks in both Cleveland and Columbus have made exclusion areas, right? So they'll build a fence and they'll keep the deer out of one particular area. And if you look at the photos of the difference between the fenced area and the non-fenced area, the fenced in area has all this growth of all this stuff, plants like you've never seen. And on the other side of the fence where the deer are, it's like someone's been mowing everything
Ecosystem Damage And Social Tolerance
SPEAKER_03down to the bottom. So you don't notice it unless you have a comparison or contrast. And again, it's sort of sneaked up on us a little bit. We don't really notice what we've lost sometimes ecologically.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I know it's not just Dublin dealing with this problem, communities, you know, all over Ohio, all over central Ohio. Um, what are you seeing uh when it comes to deer populations and community concerns?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're exactly right, right? This is all across Ohio. Uh similar things are are going on, usually, sort of historically in this last 20, 30 years, the communities that have taken action to reduce deer numbers, it was mostly deer vehicle collisions, right? Cars getting smashed up, deer, of course, mutilated by that, and people getting injured and our insurance rates going up, that kind of thing. So that's typically it. But now what we're seeing more and more, it's landscape damage. People are losing their gardens, and uh so I got a lot of my perspective from working with the city of Worthington on this and surveying the population a couple of different times, very thorough surveys. And what a lot of people were saying said, I've been a gardener for 40 years in Worthington, and you know, there's always been deer around. I love deer, but in the last five, 10, 15 years, I can't even plant deer-resistant species because they're eating everything, right? The thing that I've heard in Dublin, more probably more proportionately than other communities, is aggressive deer behavior. There's been a lot of attacks, right? Does particularly during fawning season, where people are walking their dogs typically, but there's a learned behavior now, so that you've got a number of deer that have learned, oh, that's what we do, we attack humans. Um I've talked to wildlife officers about that who basically say that's a really abnormal behavior. You know, when you start seeing that, that should raise alarm flags, you know, in any community.
SPEAKER_01Right. You talked about aggressive deer, deer vehicle collisions, the loss of wildlife, the harm to the ecosystem. Um so when communities reach out to you for guidance, what types of factors are you evaluating before you recommend different management options?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's the thing, right? It's it's not usually that a community is just sitting around saying, hey, why don't we evaluate deer impacts for no good reason, right? What's been accumulating over time are complaints and problems, and like I said, it kind of has snuck up on us. And so to give the example of Worthington, uh, everybody's sort of been watching Worthington as one of the first municipal areas around Columbus to try to dive into this. Um and that's what had been accumulating. People, you know, collisions with cars, property damage, all those kinds of things. Um one of the other things that was happening was there were poachers, there were deer hunters sneaking into Worthington, and people were finding arrows and things like that because there were some really big deer. So many of them. This is a safe place, right? So starting out, you've got a community that's already got problems. You've got calls, the police are picking up carcasses, all this kind of stuff. So multiple measures. But then we feel like one of the first things we can do is go in and let's try to find out a little bit more if we can ground truth this a little bit, like what's really going on, what are people perceiving? What do we think is going on? So we put out a survey and we combined a number of surveys that have been used previously in Ohio and a couple of other published surveys by one of our wildlife human interaction experts at Ohio State, uh, Jeremy Bruscotter. And we put together a survey for Worthington. That survey subsequently has also gotten used by Gehanna. It was also the basis for City of Columbus did this used a version of the survey, and I think it was the basis for one of the surveys that went out to Dublin, right? So and we're asking all kinds of questions. What do you perceive? Do you think there are too many deer? Do you think there are enough deer? Do you like to see the deer stay the same? Essentially, how close are we to the social carrying capacity for deer, right? So there's biological carrying capacity, is how many deer can you have before the population will just collapse because there's no more food left, right? Nobody wants to reach biological carrying capacity. But social carrying capacity is how much tolerance can we have for sort of a peaceful coexistence where humans are happy, deer are happy, things are kind of balanced. And all those complaints are signs that we're reaching the social carrying capacity. And so when we do some surveying, we actually are trying to drill down a little bit deeper and say, are we really close to the real limits of the social carrying capacity, or are we just sort of beginning to get some complaints, that kind of a thing? And when you see communities who, you know, have a significant majority that say there's too many deer, they're causing a ton of problems. We've got all this property damage, we've got these aggressive behaviors, attacks, things like that. Those are the signs that, okay, this is a community that is going to need to reduce the number of deer that they've got. So Gehanna took the survey and said, not so worried. Not really. A lot of Columbus took the survey and said, not so worried. But Clintonville took the survey and they were, oh my gosh, you know, Worthington, Dublin, the places where there's more habitat for deer are where they're we're seeing the most problems with deer.
SPEAKER_01Right. And what happened in Dublin is I think we did a survey in 2022 and then again in 2026, and you saw that trend line of people really starting to, you know, say that it was a problem a little bit more. Um so once a community determines that it has a deer population that it needs to manage, the next question is what tools are available and which ones actually work? And one approach more communities are turning to is targeted removal. Uh, while that might feel new to some Dublin residents, we know communities across Ohio and you know our friends at the Metro Parks have been doing this for a number of years, um, even at Glacier Ridge uh next door uh to us. And um, can you talk a little bit about why more communities are adopted adopting targeted removal programs and what we've begun to see from those efforts, even though they're kind of new around uh around the Dublin area? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think a lot of people just aren't aware how widespread it is, but you mentioned a lot of communities around of Ohio have already done this, and our metro parks have been doing this for quite some time. So there's a lot of experience on the ground. And the uh uh state did a study of 74 communities in Ohio that have collectively 460 years of experience with deer removal programs. And so that's targeted removal is one of the main ways. Archery is another one, or both. Like some communities will have an archery program and a targeted removal program. Um, but that's a lot of experience and for all these similar reasons,
Why Targeted Removal Is Increasing
SPEAKER_03right? Because of deer collisions and other things. Generally, the programs have been effective at reducing the amount of collisions, at bringing deer numbers down, but where it's not effective has generally been where it's been too short term. You can't go in, remove a few deer once and say, oh, there, we'll solve our problem because it that's not how deer populations work. So um they've been pretty good. Um, they've been safe, they've uh been effective, but in not in all cases have people really known that's what's going on.
SPEAKER_01And part of it is about um changing that deer behavior, right? So they they know like they kind of know about these programs and then they might might uh change their aggressive behavior or just see that as a predator. Exactly, right?
SPEAKER_03This total lack of predators is quite unnatural for deer, so that's been part of what's going on. We had people in Worthington describing how they have deer in their backyard and they can't get them out anymore. They can't haze them, you can't scare them out. The deer just look at you like, what?
SPEAKER_05You're gonna give me some more food now, you know.
SPEAKER_03Um so yeah, that's right. As soon as predation is happening, the deer realize, oh, whoa, and they will change their behavior. And that's actually uh so targeted removal a lot of times is the most efficient and very humane way to remove as many deer as you can, you know, quickly. Uh archery programs are tend to be more dispersed, like maybe even throughout the community. And so, you know, if you only get deer at a few sites, then only a few sites will have that experience with the predation, whereas if the effort is spread out a little bit more, it can affect behavior a little bit more widespread. So there's a lot of different variables, but that is what's happening, right? We would like to see deer behavior return to something a bit more natural where they're a little bit naturally spooky and don't just stand there and look at humans like what are you, and then then start attacking us, you know, anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think it's safe to say targeted removal is not the first option that most communities are going to think of. It's certainly not the first tactic that we've employed here in uh Dublin. Barbara talked a lot about our no-feed ordinance that passed in 2023, and she did a great job of explaining the downfalls of some other management approaches, like sterilization, relocation, which I think are both illegal in Ohio. And I know there are ethical considerations for that as well. I think, and I think some of our listeners would love to hear that perspective from you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure. Well, and you're exactly right, right? The the non-lethal measures are first steps for sure. So no feeding ordinances, uh disseminating best practices about behavior and how to approach deer or not to approach deer, what can you do in your yard, what kind of plants you can plant, all those things. But it's back to being a measure of social tolerance, of social carrying capacity. If we're really close to the edge of that social carrying capacity, then the problem is there's just too many deer at this point, and there's gonna be more conflicts. If we're just starting to see it, then a little bit of modification, non-lethal measures might bring the complaints down and we'll feel okay for a while. But what's going on is without removing any deer, the biological, ecological trends, the numbers of deer are just gonna keep going up. Right. So the conflicts are gonna continue to happen. So some of these ethical concerns, we saw this in Worthington as well. The first survey we did particularly, a lot of people said, Well, you can just relocate them or you could sterilize them or you contraception or all these kinds of things. Well, relocate and these are very reasonable concerns, of course. Like, number one, one of the most important things is concern for deer welfare. And it should be. Um, and any deer management program needs to take that into consideration. So, concern for animal welfare is usually the root of these. Well, let's try something else, you know, non-lethal. Okay, relocation. The deer get so stressed out, as Barbara mentioned in one study, they looked at this really closely. Like 70 to 80 percent of the deer died because of the stress involved in the relocation. So that plus you could be transmitting disease from one location to another. So relocation is just flat out illegal in Ohio. Sterilization sounds great. Like, oh, that's nice and clean, then they can't reproduce. Well, ironically, then you're not killing the deer, you're putting a deer back out on the landscape that actually won't be reproducing and might even live longer and will therefore continue to eat more on the landscape and might even cause conflicts for a longer period of time. So that's sort of against cross purposes, but it's expensive. And with an open population of deer like we have in Dublin, like we have in Worthington, like we have in Clintonville, um, those measures might work in a fenced-in area or on an island where you can get to all the deer and no other deer can come in. But with deer can come in, deer can go out, new deer can move in, great. So you sterilize some deer, and here come some new ones. You it won't solve the problem. And this has been well studied in other places. Cyuga Heights near Ithaca, New York, was about the most studied site in the U.S., probably tried everything under the sun, you know, shy of killing the deer at first because they wanted us in it. Just over time it proved that these things will not reduce the deer populations very effectively in an open space where there's lots of good deer habitat and lots of good food for it.
SPEAKER_01And that tees up the next question perfectly. Talk about the importance of deer management as a regional issue and solution rather than city by city.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, you know, if you start removing deer in Worthington, they're all going to run to Dublin and to Clintonville.
SPEAKER_04Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_03So, I mean, in a nutshell, right, you think about that. So, one thing you can't just have one community doing it because it'll sort of impact, but it'll create more problems in some other communities. So there's that. But I think there's also just the the value of collaboration, right? So collaboration between cities, as I sort of said earlier, we've uh so I was one of the members of the Worthington Deer Task Force that tried to figure out what's going on in Worthington and what should we do about this. And we were told by so many people we're all watching you. You know, everybody want to know like what's what's gonna work and what's not gonna work.
SPEAKER_01We were among those people watching.
SPEAKER_03So folks from Dublin, folks from Clintonville came to our Deer Task Force meetings just to see how we were doing, what we were doing, what we were thinking about. They watched very closely what was done with uh deer removal and whether it worked or not, you know. So we all want to learn from each other and and try not to make mistakes that other communities have made in the past. Um, and you know, Dublin and Worthington pretty similar. So a lot of the things that'll work in Worthington are gonna work in Dublin, although there'll be some differences. So I think that kind of cooperation is important. And as we mentioned, with a larger area and deer can come in and out. Well, unless you're doing something about all those other sources of deer, you could be removing deer forever in, say, Clintonville, and it's not gonna do much if all that they just keep flooding in from somewhere else.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, regional uh coordination is super important, and it's it's it's in a stage of evolution right now. We're working on it. I know city managers are talking to each other, we're trying to kind of come together, and um, it's a work in progress, but you know, we're we're definitely learning from each other, and I think that's clearly the only way we can move forward.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and as you mentioned, we've modeled our program after Worthington's in in a lot of ways. Uh so can you talk specifically about residents, what residents can expect in Dublin? Uh, when people hear target removal, you know, they might think, oh no, they're getting read of all the deer. Um, but there are kind of really specific parameters on the program. And I know you know a lot about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right. Uh and hopefully Dublin's experience can just follow Worthington's experience because so far, anyway, it's it's gone really well. Uh people have been pleased. Um, some people have reported, oh, less conflict with deer already, although it's much too soon to decide whether it's really true or not. Some people were even saying, oh, it's so much better before we even did anything right. Yeah, so um, so things have gone really well. We've gotten 4,200 pounds of meat for the food pantry, uh, venison, ground venison. Um, so that's one thing. And I think that you're exactly right that one of the things that people were worried about is, but I love the deer. And uh fortunately for all those who love deer, me included, it would be impossible to remove the deer from the landscape. And nobody wants to do that anyway. Like that's not the point. Back to those 40 lifelong gardeners in, you know, Worthington and Dublin that would just love it to have deer levels be a little bit more like they were, say, 15 years ago, that's the best we would hope for anyway. We want a peaceful coexistence. We want deer where I think that's part of our property values, I think that's part of our quality of life. As I love to see wildlife. That's something that I would pay for, is a chance to see wildlife. And so to get to see the deer every year, to get to see a fawn running around, that's all wonderful. But when there's just too many of them and they're causing so many problems, then now people aren't happy with them. Maybe some people do want to just remove them, right? But that's never been a goal of a you know, a lethal uh program, a removal program is not ever going to remove all the deer off the landscape, nor is that the goal, nor would that even be healthy.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, so yeah, it's to bring numbers back down to a level that's in a better balance that everybody can be a bit happier with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think someone on social media said, Don't take the deer in my backyard. I love them. You know, they hang out there. And we can assure people we're not going into anyone's backyard. So if the deer stay there,
Safety Standards And What Residents Notice
SPEAKER_01they they will be safe. Um, but anytime firearms Are involved. Obviously, safety is understandably going to be a big question that people are going to ask about. And I know you have worked really closely with the USDA, who will be conducting the targeted removals here in Dublin. And can you just kind of lay out the safety measures that are built into these programs and talk a little bit about what you've seen in communities across Ohio and the safety track record there?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and this is really important because a lot of the initial concerns that give rise to even thinking to do anything about managing deer are a lot of times about public safety and quality of life. So with deer removal, firearms, safety is the whole program. They wouldn't be able to do it at all if they couldn't do it safely. So back to those 74 communities, 460 cumulative years of experience with lethal deer removal in Ohio, there have been zero human injuries. So how how do they do that? Number one, they have raised platforms that they're going to be on. So the shots that they're taking to harvest deer are going to be downward into the ground. Okay. So you know, if they have if they missed, then they generally don't miss. But if they did, it's the ammunition goes right into the ground. Second, the ammunition is already a frangible type of ammunition that breaks apart sort of immediately, right? So the any worry of some ricocheting bullet or something, that that wouldn't even happen. It just sort of breaks apart. So even if there was some sort of twig or something flew in front of it and the bullet hit that, it just breaks up immediately. That also helps it have the kind of impact that will have a more immediate sort of kill of the animal, which is a more humane way. They won't even know what hit them, kind of thing. So there's that. Um there's also the you're used in night vision, you know, goggles or whatever they've got, right? This high-tech stuff. And so they also have suppressors on the weapons as well, so that it doesn't make much noise, just sort of a light popping noise compared to a really loud retort. Um and they they log every shot, every round, every bullet is accounted for. Um, so it's incredible the precision with which they do these operations. Um, they also are working with uh you know local police, um, and they have this perfect safety record. So I mean, you think of Dublin, you think of golf, frankly. And the funny stat is hunting is actually safer than golf. Statistically in terms of injuries, if you if you're worried about people getting injured or something like that, golf leads to more injuries than hunting. And I'm not, we're not talking about hunting, we're talking about targeted removal by sharpshooter professionals that have a zero, you know, nothing, you know. So if hunting itself, even just the general public hunting, is actually safer than golf, you know, targeted removal is the safest hunting you could ever imagine. Wow. Kind of thing. So that's that that that sounds almost crazy to say, but uh when you when you look at what's really going on there, that's uh very precise. People have said don't compare targeted removal to hunting, because targeted removal is more like a like a military operation or a surgical. It's just very technically controlled.
SPEAKER_01Well, and like hunting is kind of a sport, you know, you're out there chasing in here, it's you it's a very targeted, as the name suggests. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03Some people enjoy hunting because it's challenging. It might be difficult, might be stretching your level of skill.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03No, nobody's level of skill is being stretched in the targeted removal world. These these every single shot is accounted for, every they know exactly what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01And they have like drones that are kind of watching the wildlife.
SPEAKER_03Well, they have all sorts of techniques, right, for understanding, you know, they need to show up where the deer are going to be. So they're monitoring all sorts of sites to see where the deer are moving so that they can actually show up and be in a place where the deer are.
SPEAKER_01You talked a little bit about this, but in Dublin, we're going to be conducting um, you know, our first year of operations in public places, mostly in public parks. Um we're still working on all of those locations. We will publicize them once we have them, but still working on that. Um but what can people maybe expect? This will be after dark, after parks are closed, people will be notified. Um, you mentioned you they might hear some light popping from the guns, but other than that, what what could they maybe be prepared to notice?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the basic answer there is really not much. Right. So in some ways, so Dublin's going to be a little bit different than Worthington. Worthington did use private property, partly because Worthington has smaller public property. There wasn't a few years. Dublin's got plenty of space to do this with your uh public green spaces. Um but uh in the case of Worthington, most of the deer were actually taken on private property. And so you had adjacent properties kind of closer, probably, than would be the case in the in the Dublin removal. So and there, they were only over the whole operation, there were maybe four or five people that called in and reported at at uh at a correct time. So that is probably what they heard. They heard a popping noise and they wondered, you know, is that the deer? That that was kind of it. Um, so you're probably closer to the Metro Park experience. This has been going on for decades. And most people have no idea because there's just almost no chance for any kind of disturbance or interaction. So at most, yeah, light popping noises, it's after parks are closed, they set a perimeter, they do all those kinds of things to and and even people say, Well, what if someone accidentally wandered through there? Well, then the person who's taking the shot would see that.
SPEAKER_01See that person, just like they can see the deer.
SPEAKER_03There's just not a scenario where it makes sense that you know something big and bad is likely to happen. So at most, yeah, some light popping sounds that someone might hear. Sometimes people are concerned with seeing the deer carcass or something like that. But again, if this is a closed-off park after dark, they handle that, you know, very well as well, and goes off for a processor so that the meat can go to a food pantry. So it just, yeah, there's really not like if you're not that concerned with it, you'll never know this happened, basically. And if you are concerned with this, then you can recognize all the things that are going on to make sure that this is a to continue the perfect safety record for these kinds of operations.
SPEAKER_01Uh well, we asked Barbara this question, and so now I want to get your answer. Um, what does successful deer management look like to you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So one of the things I love most about the way Dublin is approaching this is that Dublin's created an ethics statement about the deer program. And if you look at the introduction of that ethics statement, it says several things, and I think that they are great descriptions of what a successful program looks like. Number one, improve ecological balance. Wouldn't it be great to see more of the native wildflowers come back and the tree regeneration and all those kinds of things we talked about? Uh reduce
Ethics Statement Myth Busting And Next Steps
SPEAKER_03human-deer negative interactions, right? So that we get less reports of aggressive behavior and less vehicle collisions. That would be super successful if that was happening. Enhancing safety in general, right?
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Um reducing property damage, yeah. Gardeners, landscapers, a little bit more happy, that would be successful. I think a really important piece of a successful program is that there's um engaged ongoing monitoring and ongoing dialogue. Like if anything goes wrong or if there's any problems, then talk about that because that's how these programs have achieved this perfect success rate in terms of safety is that anytime there's a problem, you address it, deal with it. So keep the good discussion going, the dialogue going, keep the public forums, you know, talking about things so that people are aware and people can address the problems. Uh healthier deer is a successful outcome. Venison to the food pantry for people who are in need, who are hungry. I think that's a good outcome. And, you know, gardeners being able to plant species, again, even deer-resistant species, and not have them all get eaten by deer. That's a successful outcome. And I guess just enhancing peaceful coexistence, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think Barbara said the same phrase there.
SPEAKER_03That was that I picked that from Barbara. That's yeah, that was a great way to say that.
SPEAKER_01It's all about that. Uh well, thanks for mentioning the ethics statement. I know that was really important to our city council, and that's kind of guiding the whole program. And I know that we all want the same thing. So um, other than what you just mentioned, if if residents could take one thing away from today's uh conversation, what would you hope it would be?
SPEAKER_03I think the thing that I've been most interested in, because I study human values, is what I've seen in the deer programs and what helps make them successful, is that listening to each other, right? Getting the data to figure out what's actually going on here, and then responding to what we hear and to what we see and what we can figure out. That's a great way to go. It's all about that kind of a process. And the concern for the well-being of deer and for people and for the larger landscape. I personally think that a deer management program can help us all be better connected and more aware of those factors of well-being to enhance the well-being of our entire community, not just humans, but you know, the living landscape as well. So I think there's something that we can strive for here that in sometimes crazy political times, ironically, something like a deer management program actually can kind of connect people to paying better attention to our own health, to the health of wildlife, to the landscape, the ecosystem, and all those things are good things. Um, so I think that that's uh something to be embraced. I think that Central Ohio actually has the capacity to be a bit of a model for other places because I think that the cities that are looking at this have been looking at it very carefully, very thoughtfully, very openly, public forums, and are addressing what can be some challenging and difficult issues in ways that have this sort of iterative feeling of well, we'll we will keep figuring it out. And I think that's my take-home message is you know what? This it's not the first time it's been done. 74 communities in Ohio with you know good success on this, but we will keep figuring it out even better as we go along. And that's something that can be good for our communities.
SPEAKER_01Wow, and it's such a unifying message, and it's like like you said, uh, you know, some people um come to the table with a lot of questions, but when they hear people like yourself talking about the bigger picture of it and just how thoughtfully you approach it and and ethical um perspectives, you know, they do walk away kind of scratching their head, coming away with a different perspective than they did before.
SPEAKER_03We can surprise ourselves sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Right. Okay, last question. Uh, what would be one myth about deer management that you would like to bust?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we sort of already mentioned this at the at the top of the hour, but the thing that I think was most obvious through my experience in Worthington, and is probably similar to some of the dynamics in every municipality, is this idea of people would said in our first survey in Worthington, they said, Well, the deer were here first, and we have no right to bother the deer. Or it was our development that removed their habitat, all those kind of things. And as Barbara said, as we've already talked about, with deer, it's actually sort of just the opposite. What we've actually done is we've created unnaturally amazing habitat for them so that their numbers boost up into you know 10 times more than it would naturally be. And so we have caused that imbalance. But the good news is that we also are good at, have been good at. We can restore habitat, we can manage deer numbers, we can do all of these things. It's been successful in other communities, and in doing so, we can restore a better balance to our community and achieve that peaceful coexistence a little bit more than we are achieving it now. And that's empowering, right? So rather than um this well, maybe nature knows better than us. Let's just let nature take its course. We know ecologically and biologically, if we don't do anything, the problems will just get worse. The deer numbers will keep going up. That's that's there's not a question of that anymore. So we can't just sit around and hope that it gets better. We don't really need to do anything. We actually have the opportunity to take better responsibility for our landscape and for our community, and in so doing, enhance our well-being and the well-being of the wildlife and the ecosystem, all of it together. So I think it's an opportunity for connection. I think it's an opportunity for community and civic-minded activity that's good for all of us.
SPEAKER_01Right. And that's why one of the biggest reactions we've gotten from this is thank you. Residents are just glad that we're doing something. So yeah. And thank you, Greg, for being with us today. What a pleasure. Um, we're so happy to have you here today. And we will see you back here in Dublin soon for one of our public information sessions. You can find information about those on our website, dublinohiousa.gov. Um, but just thank you for being here today.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely my pleasure. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01And to our uh listeners, thank you for taking time to connect with your city. Join us next time as we continue to explore the people, projects, and experiences that make Dublin a thriving place to live, work, and grow.