The best thing I can do for this deer herd is hunt.

Blue flashing lights got closer as I drove home. A tow truck was lifting a white SUV onto its bed.  The front of the vehicle was smashed. The owner of those blue lights, the sheriff, was on the opposite side of the road looking into the ditch.  He was looking at a recently killed deer.  A deer I had probably been watching the night before.

A couple of years ago, I got in touch with a private lands wildlife biologist from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. He walked my property with me and offered advice on how to best manage the land for forest and animal health. The property had a great canopy but not much of anything else. 

When we started doing habitat maintenance and clearing the woods of the dead trees, the deer were in heaven. They munched on the downed limbs and soft wood tops. And I admit, I absolutely loved it. I spent way too much time watching them as they ate, standing on their hind legs to eat mushrooms off leaning branches. I would keep tabs on them as they bedded down and slept for hours close to the house.

All of the deer are healthy and look like they could be heading into the winter months as opposed to coming out of them.  If they lost fat reserves during the winter, you cannot tell.  One deer has a chestnut-colored coat compared to the rest that are grayish brown. It is much smaller than the others and was probably born later than most fawns last spring. If we had a “normal” winter with more snow, this deer probably would have died. Instead it is healthy and keeping up with its much bigger herd members. 

And that’s the problem. 

These deer will add fawns to the herd this spring.  There is food, water and cover on the property but as the season changes, so do my feelings about the deer. I find myself moving from enjoying seeing them to being annoyed by them. 

As spring arrives and the ticks starts to come out, I am reminded that deer are tick-carrying animals that don’t care that my lawn gets sprayed to keep the parasites away. They don’t care that I am planting a garden to harvest in the fall.  They eat everything they can reach: hostas, flowers, vegetables, tree buds and grass. Last year I was too cocky about my abilities to keep my beans and sunflowers growing. They were fine one afternoon and chewed down to the dirt in the morning. Deer become eating machines and decimate anything trying to grow. I am hoping strategic raised beds and netting will help this year.

More deer around also means more chances of them getting hit by cars. Last fall, before rifle hunting season started, there were more than eight deer hit between my house and my friend’s.  We live maybe three miles apart.  One morning, I let him know that a doe and fawn had been killed near his driveway. He replied that they were the sixth ones to be hit. That doesn’t count the near misses, like the one I had when I saw the twin fawns in the ditch getting ready to cross and mama jumped out in front of them – and in front of me.  I was able to avoid all of them partially because there were no other cars on the road. 

So as much as I love watching this deer herd behind my house, I will not hesitate to hunt them this fall. Removing mature does from the population will help with the overall numbers. In this case it is all about management. I know I have big bucks around — I saw them last year on my trail cameras and am already seeing early nubs on a couple of bucks  — but the main objective will be to remove does to reduce herd numbers.

The resident bobcat and coyotes are not putting a dent in the population, and there is no sign of winter kills (usually identified because of eagles and other birds taking advantage when the snow starts melting). At the current rate, the deer will push the limits of social carrying capacity very soon. 

The best thing I can do for them is plan to hunt them this fall and fill my freezer while keeping the overall population managed. 

Erin Merrill, an award-winning writer based in central Maine, writes “Hunt & Harvest” monthly. She welcomes emails at: [email protected].