Study Hopes To Help Endangered Deer
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON=
Associated Press Writer
12:02 PM ET 07/09/00
BIG PINE KEY, Fla. (AP) - Many of the diminutive deer roaming
this island are so brazen they'll walk right up to people expecting
a handout. That can be a problem, particularly since only about 600 to 800
key deer exist and about 1 million people drive through here on
their way to Key West each year. Of the 114 deer that died last
year, about half were hit by cars.
Researchers are studying the key deer to help preserve the
species and determine whether they can withstand more development
on this island 30 miles east of Key West.
Roel Lopez, a Texas A&M graduate student, is re-creating the
study his professor, Nova Silvy, conducted in 1969. ``Back then there were 500 people on Big Pine Key,'' Lopez said.
``Now there are 5,000.''
The key deer population has also tripled since then, which is a
surprise considering that the deer's No. 1 enemy - traffic
- has also increased dramatically.
Lopez and a crew of undergraduate students use nets to trap deer
and fit them with transmitters. The animals are not hard to find.
Some roam right up to a trap in front of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service office, others can be found in residents' yards or seen
wandering along roadsides.
Lopez knows exactly where to look. ``We have our little spots,'' he said.
He pulled up to a home and got out of his pickup truck. Sure
enough, two deer were in the backyard eating birdseed that fell
from a feeder.
``He's always here,'' said homeowner Jan
Reif-Snyder, pointing at a buck. ``I've had as many as 13 in the yard at one time.'' The deer did not flee as Lopez approached. Nor were they
intimidated by Reif-Snyder's dog, which was barking up behind a
fence about 20 yards away.
On No Name Key, Lopez pulled over, picked up some gravel and
tossed it in the street, mimicking the sound of feed hitting the
pavement. Within a minute, about 15 deer wandered into the road. ``It's like chumming for fish,'' Lopez said.
The animals' eagerness to take a handout has made the area a
popular stop for tourists, who ignore signs threatening a $250 fine
for feeding the deer. ``People come out just to feed them,'' Lopez said, pointing at a
family driving slowly down No Name Road. ``That's what they're
doing.''
Farther down the road, another family was taking pictures as
several deer walked up looking for food. The deer were out of luck,
though.
``I don't feed any wild animals,'' said Esta
Ress. ``That's not the way they should live.''
Instead, she and her husband, Lewis, of
Aventura, Fla., brought their grandsons to see the deer, just as they brought the boys'
father to see them years ago.
``They're so lovely, so dainty looking,'' she said. Does weigh between 60 and 80 pounds, and bucks grow to 80 to 110
pounds, Lopez said.
The National Key Deer Refuge makes up 3,000 acres on Big Pine
Key, or about half the island, and 700 acres on No Name Key, or
about 75 percent of the island. About 75 percent of the key deer
live on the two islands.
``Those deer down there are as thick as you'd find deer
anywhere,'' said Silvy. ``There's a lot of deer per unit of area,
but it's just a small area.''
Silvy said Lopez is gathering much more data than he was able to
obtain, in large part because it's easier to trap the deer. Thirty
years ago, he said, they would run away. Now they walk right up to
people.
Urbanization, to a certain degree, has helped the deer, Lopez
said. Developers created more space by filling in areas where
mangroves sprung from salt water. They also cleared out a lot of
trees, making room for the underbrush deer love to eat. Deer also
find food and fresh water in many people's yards. But that doesn't mean more development can continue unchecked.
The island is under a building moratorium to protect the endangered
species.
Besides traffic, deer have been killed by dogs and some have
been victims of such things as ant poison piled in residents'
yards, said Phil Frank, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
``People come in one at a time and say 'I just want to build one
house. How's that going to hurt the deer?''' Frank said. ``You do
that 10,000 times and then it's all over.'' The moratorium will not last forever, Frank said. But it will
last until the government knows exactly how development will affect
the deer.
That's where Lopez's study will come in handy. Frank's agency plans to use it to write a habitat conservation
plan, which could be in place by October 2001. The plan will
determine which areas of the islands can be exempted from the
building moratorium and which land the agency should try to buy and
protect.
``We would like to know what the future of Big Pine will look
like comprehensively without having to fight a battle with each
little event,'' Frank said.
The deer will likely never come off the protected species list.
There's just not enough room for the population to increase much
more.
``Even at the best of times there's only ever been 1,000 deer
and that's probably all there will ever be,'' Frank said. The deer were nearly extinct when the refuge was established in
1957.
``Key deer should be billed as a conservation success story,''
Frank said. ``They were hunted down to about 25 animals.'' Some deer do live on neighboring islands, but their numbers are
small. Lopez is experimenting with relocating deer to Little Pine
Key, where they don't have to worry about getting hit by cars. He
moved three pregnant does to the island. Two swam back. Now he
wants to see if yearlings will be more receptive to a move. If not,
he's giving up.
Frank agreed that it may not be a good idea to keep up the
experiment if the deer aren't happy with it. ``It's hard to justify causing harm to animals if your paradigm
is they are about to go extinct,'' he said.
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