EUREKA SPRINGS: Hazards created by herds of deer

LITTLE ROCK — Deer are devouring gardens in Eureka Springs and disturbing golfers at Holiday Island.

In the countryside, vehicular encounters can be deadly for both deer and humans.

In August, a deer darted onto Arkansas 127 near Alabam and collided with a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, killing Steven Treat. The former Madison County sheriff had just dodged one deer standing on the highway. Then he was blindsided by another one. Whitetail deer can run up to 40 mph.

As deer season approaches Thursday, Arkansas' deer population is hovering at an all-time high between 750,000 and 1 million. And they're becoming city dwellers.

In Eureka Springs, groups of deer prowl through town foraging on gardens and landscaped lawns.

"We have a huge deer population in this town," said Melissa Greene, chairman of Eureka Springs' Historic District Commission. "We have an urban forest. I think if they want to do something with the deer, they'll have to deforest this place. Do I like them? Yeah, I like them. But they've come through and raided my garden."

"There's just too many deer," said Bruce Levine, director of parks in Eureka Springs, a tourist town with 2,278 residents. "It's hard to get a flower garden going, or vegetable garden for that matter, and we've had a couple of accidents in town."

About 10 deer-vehicle collisions were reported to the Eureka Springs PoliceDepartment over the past year, Police Chief Earl Hyatt said. All of those occurred within city limits.

But it could be worse, Hyatt said.

Over the past few years, vehicles have hit two black bears - one each in Benton and Madison counties - and cars have collided with at least two elk in Newton County, said Lt. Brian McKinzie, an enforcement officer with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Newton County Sheriff Keith Slape was a deputy when the patrol car he was driving struck a 1,000-pound elk in 2003.

"I killed mine with a 1995 Caprice Classic going 80 mph," he said.

Slape said the car's blue lights were flashing as he sped down Arkansas 21 through Boxley valley on his way to a domestic disturbance. The bull elk walked into the middle of Beech Creek Bridge.

"I had nowhere to go, so I hit it," Slape said. "It killed the elk. I took a trip in an ambulance. I had a lot of glass in me. If I hadn't struck it like I did, it would have killed me when it came through the windshield."

But deer collisions are much more common in Newton County than elk, Slape said, adding that his wife's car has been in the repair shop three times for deer-strike repairs.

"That's an every-day occurrence to the point that they're becoming a nuisance," he said.

Deer collisions are also a daily occurrence in both Washington and Benton counties, McKinzie said. The urbanization of those two counties - home to Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers - means more motorists are on the road, and the area has more deer than ever before, he said.

"Every day, Benton County has a road kill deer," McKinzie said. "There are some days in Benton County that we have had almost 20."

Deer tend to use the same migratory paths for decades even if man builds an interstate highway in the way. Occasionally, herds of 20 deer try to cross busy Interstate 540 in Benton County. Seven were killed in one attempt, McKinzie said.

"If they cross here today, they'll cross here 20 years from now," said McKinzie. "That's why the highway department knows where to put those deer-crossing signs."

In the 1920s, the population of Arkansas' whitetail deer had declined to about 500. Established in 1915, the Game and Fish Commission set out to restore the state's deer population.

By 1985, the number of deer in the state had increased to 500,000. Since then, the state's deer population has almost doubled. Along the way, in 1993, the Arkansas General Assembly officially declared the whitetail deer to be the Arkansas state mammal.

To thin the state's deer herd, McKenzie said he would like to see the limit raised on the number of deer that can be killed during hunting season, especially in Northwest Arkansas, where the limit is three per hunter. But that decision would be up to the seven game and fish commissioners.

Every year, between 150,000 and 180,000 deer are killed by hunters in the state, said Brad Miller, a deer biologist with the Game and Fish Commission.

In 2002, voters in Eureka Springs overwhelmingly rejected a proposed urban hunt to thin the deer population. Since then, diseases that could be spread by parasites on deer,such as tick-borne Lyme disease, have become more of a problem across the country. Reported cases of Lyme disease doubled between 1991 and 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 20,000 cases in the U.S. are now reported annually. Levine said it may be time to take the issue before the voters again.

FRIENDLY CRITTERS

The deer have become so friendly in Holiday Island that the town's board of commissioners has set up a "deer management advisory committee" that met twice in August. Holiday Island, a retirement community, has about 2,500 people and an unknown number of deer.

The committee is surveying residents to gauge their opinion of the deer. They're asking residents how often they see deer, if they feed deer, if they have a problem with deer visiting their gardens and if they've ever had a vehicular collision with a deer. Residents have until Oct. 31 to return the surveys.

Kay Janky, chairman of the deer committee, said people have suggested an urban deer hunt in Holiday Island.

"We'd have to have good reasons to go with a hunt, and we don't have those reasons yet," she said. "We probably will try to encourage the people not to feed the deer. Deer are grazers, and they know where the food is."

Urban deer hunts have been under way in four Arkansas towns: Hot Springs Village, Bull Shoals, Horseshoe Bend and Cherokee Village. Only bow hunting is allowed during the urban hunts. The hunts all began in early September. The one in Hot Springs Village ended Sunday; the others continue for three months.

Spotlight surveys in heavily wooded Bull Shoals found 98 deer per square mile in one area and 190 in another. In Cherokee Village, the range was 32 to 71 deer per square mile. At Horseshoe Bend, 50 deer were caught in the spotlight one night and 67 the next.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Holiday Island has about 105 deer per square mile. That's based on a two-night spotlight survey of an 18-mile section of town. The deer show little fear of humans, even on Holiday Island's golf course.

"One man was teeing off, and a deer was standing by the tee box," said Miller, who helped with the survey. "It's an interesting situation there.

"Holiday Island definitely has a lot of deer. They're on the high end. I think anybody who drives around that place will see that there is a pile of deer on Holiday Island."

The deer committee plans to do its own spotlight survey as soon as leaves fall from the trees this fall.

Five Holiday Island deer were harvested by the Game and Fish Commission and sent to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, which is affiliated with the University of Georgia.

Researchers will test the deer to see if the density of the population is causing health problems for the deer. Among other things, they'll check for Chronic Wasting Disease, which can attack the nervous system, but not for Lyme disease, said Kevin Keel, assistant research scientist with the disease study.

"In general, folks in Arkansas are at relatively low risk for Lyme disease," Keel said via e-mail.

The test results are expected in November.

Janky said it will be early next year before Holiday Island has all its test results, surveys and studies done. Then commissioners will decide if something needs to be done about the deer.