Deer, there, everywhere
While people have always complained about town deer, the issue has become more serious as more deer that typically stay on the outskirts of town wander into city limits.
A doe samples some foliage in a downtown yard last summer. As development and recreation encroach on deer habitat, they have increasingly been seeking refuge in town. But this migration has led to a host of problems of its own, and the City, along with CPW, is looking to educate residents on coexisting with the ungulates./ Photo by Missy Votel
All right, let’s talk about it – town deer. Whether you’ve caught them eating your tulips, using crosswalks like that Beatles album everyone annoyingly recreates or just staring creepily at night under the cover of bushes, it’s likely you’ve encountered Durango’s infamous town deer.
Over the years, it’s been common practice for the people of Durango to complain about our ungulate co-habitants who have seemingly shed some of their wild ways in favor of city living.
But recently, the issue has become more serious as more deer that typically stay on the outskirts of town wander into city limits, so much so that the City of Durango, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and other agencies have been meeting over the past couple months to improve messaging to residents to reduce conflicts with deer.
The fact is, deer populations in Southwest Colorado are low and continue to decline. But with rampant development in and around Durango, as well as unprecedented levels of recreation on public lands, more deer are being pushed into town, creating the misguided perception populations are fine, even booming.
Add on the urban flight of people from big cities, who, in their previous lives, may not have had to deal with wildlife, and you have all the ingredients for an issue getting out of hand.
“The increase in growth in Durango and La Plata County has taken over what was traditional habitat for wildlife,” Dave Eppich, who serves on the La Plata County Wildlife Advisory Board, said. “That’s what happens with growth.”
In the wrong direction
The context here is that deer populations have been struggling to survive in recent years. In the two herd management units around Durango (which extends east to Wolf Creek Pass and west toward the county line), CPW aims to hold populations between 27,000-33,000 deer. Yet, the most recent count shows deer on the low end, closer to 27,000. A range of factors can be attributed to dwindling deer: habitat loss, drought, climate change, disease and other human impacts.
“There’s a perception there is an overpopulation of deer because of the higher density of deer in town,” Adrian Archuleta, CPW’s area wildlife manager, said. “But we’re at the low end of our population objectives for deer.”
As it stands, there’s no firm way to estimate the size of the town deer herd. But, the thinking, wildlife experts say, is the few deer on the landscape surrounding Durango are being drawn into town, whether that’s because development is destroying habitat, conflicts on trails are pushing deer off public lands, or deer are realizing people leave out easy food, including trash, bird feeders and plants.
Of course, it could be a mixture of all these factors.
“A lot of deer in town doesn’t mean we have a healthy population across our landscape,” Amy Schwarzbach, the city’s natural resource manager, said. “It means those few deer out there are being drawn into your front lawn.”
One, two punch
Still, most officials agree two main factors are likely behind the town’s overabundance of deer – an incredible amount of development in and around Durango, and record numbers of people getting outside.
“Town has definitely seen a facelift, and the landscape is changing at the hands of human activity,” Schwarzbach said. “And deer are doing their best to adjust.”
In the places of refuge that still exist, such as the public lands around Durango (like Horse Gulch, and Overend and Dalla mountain parks), more people are out recreating, displacing deer, Eppich said. “With the rapid growth of outdoor recreation, and the number of trails that now exist in wildlife habitat, it creates real issues.”
Indeed, Schwarzbach said one of the biggest issues is dogs, illegally off-leash, running after and harassing deer, which has become an even bigger problem since people hit the outdoors in droves during the pandemic.
“We’ve definitely received a spike in off-leash dog concerns,” Schwarzbach said. “And it has an accumulative effect in our mountain parks. If deer don’t feel safe, they go into town.”
Living with wildlife
Once in town, deer pose a whole other host of issues.
Though the deer lounging in your back yard may seem docile, they are still wild animals and prone to aggressive behavior. Mule deer are especially on edge during the rut in the fall (think frat bros late at night trying to find a mate), as are does when they are protecting their young.
It’s hard to put an exact number on the amount of reported conflicts with deer, CPW’s Archuleta said, because there are a handful of law enforcement and wildlife agencies that can get called on the scene.
Still, CPW is forced to put down more than a dozen deer in town each year because of injuries from vehicle collisions and getting entangled in fences, among other reasons, Archuleta said. CPW also receives a number of calls for dogs harassing deer. Not to mention, more deer congregating in one place not only increases chances of disease spread, but also attracts larger predators, i.e. mountain lions.
And, it’s not uncommon to ticket someone for intentionally feeding the wild animals. Just this past year, CPW issued a citation to a homeowner in Forest Lakes, north of Bayfield, for intentionally leaving his garage door open so deer could have easy access to hay bales inside.
“It happens a lot more than people think,” Steve McClung, assistant area wildlife manager with CPW, said. “It’s tricky, because we have to be at the right place at the right time. And a lot of times, people don’t report these incidents.”
Durango Police Cmdr. Jacob Dunlop said the department has received two to three calls recently about people feeding deer in town. On the upside, he said there has been no uptick in deer-vehicle collisions.
Meeting of the minds
This past fall, a smattering of deer conflicts prompted the City of Durango to sit down with wildlife agencies to talk about ways to better educate residents, many of whom are new to town.
“One of the main goals is to simply educate people,” Eppich said. “A lot of new people have moved into the area, and we’re trying to educate them so they respond responsibly with these issues.”
Aside from the obvious (or perhaps not so obvious, like don’t feed deer, pick up abandoned fawns or take selfies with does protecting their young, all of which happen every year, CPW said), the messaging campaign aims to remind residents to close gates and fences, and remove items, like clothes lines and Christmas lights, that can become entangled in deer antlers.
Solutions for more complicated issues, like making sure people leash their dogs, are going to be harder to find. Durango, unlike other towns, doesn’t have park rangers to enforce the law, and it’s not realistic to expect Durango Police to take the lead with all its other responsibilities.
“I can’t imagine (police) have the resources,” McClung said. “There’s the possibility of park rangers in the future. But right now that doesn’t exist.”
Darrin Parmenter, director of the CSU La Plata County Extension Office, said it’s possible to grow plants that deer are less apt to eat, but realistically, deer will eat anything if they are hungry enough.
“I don’t think the solution is in what we plant,” he said. “It’s the fact people are moving here because they can jump out their front door and be on public land, but that’s where our wildlife live. And if we continue to disrupt wildlife, they’ll come into town.”
Wake up call
But it’s not all defeatism. A few years ago, Durango had a major problem with bears, prompting a massive effort to change human behavior, with many of the same issues afoot, like not leaving out food sources (though, it should be noted, the past four years have been solid natural food years for bears).
“I think great progress has been made, but it’s likely too soon to tell,” Bryan Peterson, of Bear Smart Durango, said. ”There’s a lot left to do.”
While the town deer squabble might seem like small potatoes in a world where larger issues loom – like being on the brink of World War 3 or the New York Jets’ decade-long playoff drought – the issue is a microcosm of the much larger issue of the loss of wildlife migration corridors across the West.
“Just look at where we’ve chosen to develop,” Archuleta said. “And if we continue, it’s no surprise we’re having these issues.”
Deer, for example, would historically migrate hundreds of miles between the San Juan Mountains down to parts of New Mexico. But now, development on all sides (residential, oil and gas, roads, commercial, trails, etc.) has carved up and fragmented the landscape so these historic travel routes are no longer possible.
Put simply: it’s not a deer’s first choice to lie in your yard, munching on your garden. Yet human impact has completely altered the landscape, and therefore wildlife behavior. And as development continues, it will be incumbent on residents to acknowledge that living in the mountains requires an element of interaction with and awareness of the natural world.
“There’s a surrounding environment we are impacting,” Eppich said. “How do we do that in a more responsible way?”