The City conducts a deer management program each year in Eden Prairie. The program starts with a deer census which generates information about the number of deer in the city. We know what the ecological carrying capacity of the City is for deer, so the process of determining the size of the annual herd reduction is simple math.
This year our target herd reduction is 115 animals. After 7 nights of work, the contractor that we hired to conduct the herd reduction program had reached 102. We expect the contractor to complete the reduction by the end of this month; maybe by the end of this week.
The deer reduction program has been effective in not only reducing the number of car-deer collisions in the City, but also in reducing the level of damage that deer do to private and public landscapes with their winter foraging.
I don’t normally speak so euphemistically in this blog, but this is a topic that cities, including this one, must tread lightly on. There’s no pretty way to say “herd reduction”. But it’s important to do. And it’s as important for the ecological health of our urban deer herd as it is for the driving public.
