In Dr. Seuss’s “If I Ran the Zoo,” a tiny deer with long antlers is said to be so cute that hunters cannot bear to shoot it.
The “deer that’s so nice he could sleep in your bed” may be fiction, but the deer roaming Hanover this fall, a population 30 percent larger than usual, pose a real problem.
Following a series of mild winters, Hanover Town officials and residents are grappling with the increase. New Hampshire’s archery deer hunting season began Monday and will last into December, and the College is collaborating with the Town of Hanover to increase hunting opportunities in the area.
Two sessions held in the Howe Library last week addressed the growing deer problem and forest health management. The first was geared toward forest managers and landowners, while the second was for town residents.
Attendees at the first session were mainly worried about deer overbrowsing forests, while Hanover residents raised concerns about deer in town and Lyme disease transmission, Hanover Town Manager Julia Griffin said. About 60 people attended each session, town planning office senior planner Vicki Smith said.
Griffin noted that mice, not deer, are the main vectors of Lyme disease.
Fish and game officials from New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as forest and deer management experts, also attended.
“This is not a simple, straightforward problem, and there is not a simple, straightforward solution,” Griffin said. “We didn’t come away with one solution or strategy in our minds.”
Dartmouth and the Town of Hanover have taken measures to decrease the number of deer in the area by opening about 1,200 acres of new land to hunters, Griffin said. Most significantly, the Trescott Property — land jointly owned by the Town of Hanover and the College, within walking distance of campus — has been opened to the public for deer hunting.
This property holds reservoirs that supply water to the College and the Town of Hanover. A substantial amount of the property’s land is infested with invasive species, and the large deer population, which has consumed native plants at an increasing rate, restricts forest regrowth, Hanover Conservancy executive director Adair Mulligan said. Hunters are allowed on the property to decrease the amount of deer and aid native plant revegetation.
Measures taken by local agents have led to a 50-percent increase in the number of deer killed over the past three hunting seasons, but Hanover residents would like to see more action taken, Griffin said.
Duane Follensbee, a custodian at the College, said he remembered seeing a particularly high number of deer last year. This year, he has noticed them again, and several left a mess behind Parkhurst Hall last Friday, he noted.
Some residents were hoping that the state would agree to issue nuisance permits for the area, which would more rapidly fix deer problem, Griffin said. These permits would allow certified hunters to take more deer than allowed under current hunting regulations.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, however, controls all hunting regulations in the state, including the dispensing of nuisance permits.
Griffin said she has gotten the impression that New Hampshire Fish and Game officials are not convinced that the deer population in Hanover needs additional hunting permits. Instead, she said, they think allowing time to pass and weather to run its course will reduce the number of deer over time.
A few town residents worry about the safety of opening new lands for hunting, and some parents do not want their children to be exposed to hunting in the area.
“We’ve had a handful of folks who have expressed concern, but the vast majority of people would like us to do something to reduce the size of the deer herd,” Griffin said.
The large deer herd results from two consecutive mild winters in 2011-12 and 2012-13. While the past winter was not uncharacteristically mild, deer density remains high, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department website.
Nearly 2,000 deer were killed in Grafton County last year, accounting for about a sixth of the 12,540 deer killed statewide. This made it the county with the second-highest number of deer killed.
In recent years, Cornell University has also suffered from a large deer population on campus and in the surrounding areas. The university implemented a deer management program, which included surgically sterilizing female deer on campus and hunting deer off campus, associate professor and extension wildlife specialist Paul Curtis said.
Last year, the program worked with the New York wildlife agency to obtain a nuisance permit, which led to a 45-percent drop in the campus deer population, Curtis said.
Compared to sterilization and hunting, he added, the nuisance permit has been much more effective at combatting the large deer problem.
This article was published in print under the headline "Hanover grapples with rise in deer."
This article has been changed to reflect the following correction:
Correction appended: (Sept. 16, 2014)
Adair Mulligan is director of the Hanover Conservancy, not the Hanover Conservatory. Vicki Smith is asenior planner in Hanover's planning office, not a Howe Librarian employee.
