In Swelling Herds, A Growing Risk

Fairfax launched a deer management program about a decade ago after several traffic accidents involving deer made headlines. The county sponsors managed hunts during the winter months, during which screened applicants participate in a daytime hunt on parkland. Separately, police sharpshooters "cull" herds on overnight expeditions several times a year.

But the results are limited, said Earl L. Hodnett, the county's wildlife biologist, who noted that most county parks where deer are counted remain far from his goal of no more than 15 to 20 deer per square mile. Officials are limited to parkland where firearms pose little risk to people but where shooters have limited access to deer, which are not constrained by public boundaries. Managed hunts in January and February netted 133 deer. An additional 48 deer have been killed in four sharpshooting events this year.

"We're starting out with a big problem," Hodnett said. "There's no easy way to quickly fix a problem that's been building since the mid-'80s."

There's also no easy way with no staff, Hodnett said. In the early years, Hodnett had a part-time assistant, but the job has not been filled for several years. And although the county's deer population seemed to be decreasing in the years after the program began, numbers are on the rise again, he said.

"We are losing ground where we had gained," he said.

Fairfax supervisors are likely to include money in next year's county budget to hire an assistant for Hodnett as well as two part-time workers. Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully) has led the push.

Frey said he has not always supported the county's herd-thinning efforts, which he has viewed as more of a "feel-good" policy than effective control. Shooting deer in Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville doesn't reduce car accidents in Great Falls, he said. He also noted that until now, he viewed deer as more of a nuisance than a health risk and was less willing to devote more county dollars to the problem.

"A car collision with deer, while tragic, I don't know that it's avoidable in an area like McLean," he said. "You're never going to be able to hunt deer in an area like that. But in areas with large herds, when you see a huge spike in Lyme disease, that sort of puts it in a different perspective. We need to increase the efforts to reduce the herd size."

Officials also want to know more about the true prevalence of Lyme disease at a time when reporting efforts are unreliable. State and local officials are stepping up surveillance of deer and ticks to better understand how widespread disease-carrying ticks are. (An analysis last year of 500 deer ticks collected across Fairfax showed that about 15 percent carried the bacteria, Arias said.) They are working with doctors to improve reporting of Lyme disease. And they plan to improve public education about preventing infection by wearing proper clothing and applying insect repellent.

But all agree the problem cannot be erased overnight.

"Eradicating the deer herd is probably not achievable," said Frey, who counted more than 40 deer on a recent daytime tour of Cub Run Stream Valley Park. "Short of shutting down the parks and hunting 24 hours a day, I'm not sure how much we can do."