First Deer Sterilization Project Approved in Virginia, Humane Society

[Beringia]

The Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries has recently approved a non-lethal surgical sterilization project proposed by the City of Fairfax, Virginia to humanely reduce the population of white-tailed deer.

The Humane Society of the United States is donating $3,000 to support this project, which will be the first of its kind to be conducted in the Commonwealth.

Stephanie Boyles Griffin, senior director of wildlife response, innovations and services for The HSUS said: “We are proud to support Fairfax City and applaud the city’s groundbreaking efforts to develop and implement a humane, effective and sustainable deer management program that everyone can live with, including the deer. If successful, we hope the program will serve as a model for municipalities to replicate not only in Virginia, but throughout the entire country.”

The HSUS is a leader in the field of wildlife fertility control and is currently conducting research on the immunocontraception vaccine, Porcine Zona Pellucida (also PZP or brand name Zonastat-H) in wild horses and white-tailed deer in Colorado, Maryland, New York and Utah. Rather than inoculating female deer with immunocontraception vaccines, Fairfax City will be working with a contractor to humanely tranquilize and surgically sterilize does via a minimally invasive surgical procedure to remove the ovaries. This method, known as ovariectomies, has been conducted in Baltimore County, Maryland; San Jose, California; Town and Country, Missouri; and Cayuga Heights, New York.

The HSUS hopes that other stakeholders and interested parties will follow the organization’s lead and provide financial backing for the Fairfax City deer management project. For more information on how you can help, please contact Enid Feinberg with Wildlife Rescue, Inc. at [e-mail] or 410-593-9944.


http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2014/01/ffx-deer-sterilization.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Oh dear... nt

[loudsue]

2. Seems like they could achieve a lot more birth control by sterilizing the bucks.

Plus, it should be a lot less invasive, and wouldn't put all those female deer into menopause. But, that might make too much sense.

[Beringia]

3. not sure why

I don't know if they would actually sterilize all females, or if it is possible. There will be immigration of unsterilized females. It only takes one buck to impregnate many females, so one immigrant male could be like having several males.


Cornell University
http://www.govrelations.cornell.edu/govrelations/community/upload/IDRM-Progress-Report-Final.pdf

Merrill et al. (2003) suggested that sterilization may be effective if a given percentage of
reproductively active females were sterilized annually. Specifically, they found that sterilizing
25-50% of a hypothetical closed white-tailed deer population could lead to a 30-60% reduction
in population size over 4-10 years. Practical experience has shown that rapid reduction in a
suburban deer herd may require that 80-90% of the female deer be treated with a fertility control
technique (DeNicola, pers. commun.). Sterilization would have a better chance of success if it
was executed in a closed population, but this is unlikely except in experimental situations.
Modeling in one study did not bode well for the feasibility of surgical sterilization as the sole
tool for reducing open deer populations, especially if immigration offsets decreases in population
size (Merrill et al. 2006).

Frank and Sajdak (1993) permanently sterilized male deer via vasectomy, but the efficacy of
sterilizing males to reduce the population of a polygamous breeding population is low compared
to sterilizing females (Barlow et al. 1997). It

[loudsue]

4. Yep. One male can make a whole helluvalot of females pregnant in a week.

Each female can only get pregnant once every year or so (gestation is 7 months). If you want to control the population, you need to cut the bucks.

[bobclark86]

5. Hate to rain on the parade, but...

How is this any better than just shooting them and donating the meat to a food pantry (it's a thing in New York, actually). That way, the deer aren't eating crops/gardens and getting hit by cars for the next several years until they die of old age (or aforementioned cars) -- the whole point of cutting down their population to begin with.

[Beringia]

6. It is more humane

for one thing.

This is population control. If you cull them, they rebound stronger. This creates a stable population.

Also cannot shoot deer in city limits.