Deer Management for Block Island: An Urgent Need for Action

Editor’s Note:

TOO MANY DEER ON BLOCK ISLAND: HUNTING FOR A SOLUTION

In February 1967, four deer were sent to BI by ferry by the State of RI following a request for a hunting season on the Island by Block Islanders and the Town Council.

Over the years, the number of deer on the Island began to proliferate, causing many full-time and seasonal residents to express the need for a deer management plan to reduce the size of the herd and to minimize deer-human conflicts.

Deer-human conflicts include both physical and mental hardship to humans, manifesting in the transmission of tick-borne diseases, damage to vehicles when deer collide with moving vehicles, and the ravaging of gardens.

In 2012-2013, the RI DEM issued a report acknowledging the concerning proliferation of deer on Block Island and across the state. It noted that despite deer hunting successes, aerial density surveys revealed that “some portions of the state include deer herds that exceed desired levels”, and that deer on Block Island were “perhaps seven times desired levels.”

The report concluded that “public awareness of these problems is increasing, and the result is a need for innovative measures to manage deer herds.

DEER HERD ESTIMATES CALL FOR URGENT ACTION

In 2014, an aerial survey conducted by Vision Air Research estimated BI deer density to be 82 deer per square mile.

This density is in sharp contrast to the RI Department of Conservation’s (DEC) recommended deer density of between 8 and 15 deer per square mile needed to substantially reduce deer-human conflicts.

At 9.73 square miles, 82 deer per square mile translates to approximately 800 deer on BI in 2014.

While there have been no deer counts on BI since 2014, current estimates suggest that there are now more than 1,200, and possibly as many as 2,000 deer on the Island in 2024.

If these numbers are correct, BI’s deer density would now be in the range of 160 to 200 deer per square mile, suggesting a call for urgent action.

A PLAN IS SET TO DRASTICALLY REDUCE THE BI DEER HERD

In 2013, the BI Deer Task Force, the DEM and the Town Council, set as a long-range goal to dramatically reduce the deer herd to approximately 10 deer per square mile, or about 100 deer Island-wide.

A BI proposal to use local hunters to do the job was rejected by the RI DEM out of a concern for public safety, and a lack of assurance that local hunters were properly skilled as sharpshooters and that their program would be effective.

The DEM then filed a set of emergency regulations to establish a “non-recreational” program to be run by professional sharpshooters employed by White Buffalo, Inc., to dramatically cull the deer population. Unlike recreational hunters, who are permitted only to use a single shot rifle, professional hunters may use multi-shot rifles.

A combination of local hunter opposition and the required use of silencers by White Buffalo (which are not permitted in RI) prevented this plan from happening.

Only nine states have restrictions on the use of silencers for hunting, with RI being one of the most restrictive.

AN ALTERNATIVE PROGRAM IS FORMULATED & IMPLEMENTED

The Town Council then adopted an alternative deer reduction program to take effect in 2014-2015 to:

• Rely exclusively on local recreational hunters,
• Pay each local hunter $150 per deer tail for each deer killed as an incentive to hunt, and
• Pay, in addition, $12.50 to each local hunter as reimbursement for the cost of each deer tag.

The money for this program came from private donations initially raised to hire White Buffalo. When this money ran out, the cost of the program was shifted to the Town budget as a line item.

In FY 2024, the budgeted amount of $24,500 was exceeded, and the Town Council requested donations from local community organizations (e.g., BIRA) to make up the shortfall.
Anticipating another shortfall, the FY2025 line item for this expense was increased to $30,000

EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THIS PROGRAM

According to the graphic, the $125 deer tail payment plan, which went into effect in 2014-2015, unfortunately, has not been effective in increasing the number of deer harvested on Block Island.

Until recently, the number of deer harvested each year has steadily decreased. The graphic shows no evidence of an increasing trend in the number of deer killed following the implementation of this plan in the 2014-2015 hunting season.

In fact, the number of deer harvested increased in the years prior to the inception of the program and then again increased in the program’s first year, but remained well below the 2014-2015 count until 2023-2024.

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

During the 2023-2024 hunting season, in departure from the downward trend, as many as 400 deer were killed, reducing the deer population by as many as one-fifth to one-third depending on the actual number of deer on the Island. However, because female deer typically give birth to twins, only half as many, or 200 female deer in this case, would be capable of replacing the 400 that were killed during the hunting season.

Accordingly, the deer tail payment program, which went into effect during the 2014-2015 hunting season, while stemming deer population growth to a limited extent, is not sufficient to reduce the deer population, and certainly not sufficient to reduce it to the extent necessary as per BI’s stated long-range goal set in 2013 to have a positive impact on the transmission of tick-borne diseases and other deer-human conflicts.

To solve Bl’s deer problem, a dramatic herd reduction (far more than one-fifth to one-third of the population per year) is needed to bring the population to a manageable size.

EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT DRASTICALLY REDUCING THE BI DEER HERD

From a 2023 BIRA-administered survey and its follow-up that same year sent to full-time and seasonal BI residents:

• Of the 544 respondents to the first survey, 91% supported reducing the deer population.
• A majority of respondents also supported both lethal and contraceptive means for reducing the BI deer population.
• Of the 220 respondents to the follow-up survey, two-thirds reported having been bitten by a tick at least once on BI.
• Approximately half of those bitten were last bitten within the past 12 months.
• 60% of those bitten contracted Lyme.
• Approximately one of every five bitten by a tick contracted a serious disease other than Lyme from the tick bite.

MORE EVIDENCE

From research linking a drastic reduction in deer density to a reduction in infected ticks and the risk of Lyme disease:

• Dr. Sam Telford (2017)¹, a tick specialist from Tufts University and Professor of Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Health conducted a successful deer reduction experiment in 2017 on Great Island², Cape Cod, MA. He found that reducing the herd by 80% to a density of 5-8 per square mile saw the tick numbers fall precipitously by >80%.
• Other researchers (Mount, et al., 1997)³ conducted simulation studies that showed that reducing deer density to 7.5 deer/km2 could decrease infected nymphal tick density by 40% within four years, while near elimination of deer is needed to lower infected nymphal tick density by >99%.
• Still other researchers (Kilpatrick, et al., 2003)⁴ conducted an annual controlled deer hunt in the coastal Mumford Cove community of Groton, CT. The herd was initially reduced by 92%. It has been maintained at the same low level of approximately 3.8 deer/km2. One year after the hunt and deer reduction, a community survey identified a large decrease in self-reported cases of Lyme disease.

¹Telford, S. R. III (2017). Deer Reduction Is a Cornerstone of Integrated Deer Tick Management. Journal of Integrated Pest Management, (2017) 8(1): 25; 1–5
²Great Island is connected to the mainland in West Yarmouth by a narrow land passage.
³Mount GA, Haile DG, Daniels E. (1997). Simulation of management strategies for the blacklegged tick (acari: ixodidae) and the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. J Med Entomology, 34, 672-83.
⁴Kilpatrick HJ, LaBonte AM.(2003). Deer hunting in a residential community: the community’s perspective. Wildlife Soc Bulletin, 31, 340-8.

RECOMMENDATIONS – 1

Because the BI Deer Task Force has not been in operation for over 2.5 years (their last recorded meeting was on March 15, 2022), we recommend that BIRA be authorized by the Town Council to have discussions with the RI DEM so that with Town Council and community engagement, a jointly approved series of steps for moving forward to dramatically cull the deer herd on BI may be developed.

As part of those steps, we recommend that:

• An aerial survey be conducted to obtain a baseline estimate of the size of BI’s current deer population as a key to measuring progress.
• A pilot study be considered to expand the number of hunting days, consisting of one or more controlled and managed winter weekends and including robust communication of when and where such hunting will take place using signage and other means
• Property owners be encouraged to support deer reduction by allowing hunting on their property
• BIRA, in conjunction with the Town Council, develop and distribute educational materials about the current deer situation

RECOMMENDATIONS – 2

We also recommend that the State consider relaxing current restrictions on BI deer hunting, including:

• Waiving the statewide limit on the number of antlered deer that can be taken in each BI hunting season
• Allowing the possibility of managed baiting on BI with the use of hunting blinds/stands
• Supporting a limited change in law to allow the use of silencers by sharpshooters on BI (and perhaps other parts of the State) so that they may be employed to dramatically reduce the BI deer herd. The use of professional sharpshooters has been shown to be the most cost effective and efficient way to drastically reduce a deer herd to the desired size and density.

Finally, we recommend that once the BI deer population is reduced to the desired size (8 to 15 deer per square mile), the number of deer killed by local hunters be monitored on an ongoing basis to determine if the number being killed is sufficiently large to maintain the reduced size of the herd at the desired size and density.