White-tailed deer will no longer find safe haven on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus.
In response to a growing deer problem, the university will allow a select number of bow-hunters on the campus arboretum from April 15 to April 30 of this year.
Deer in the area have caused significant damage to local vegetation and also been involved in a number of large car-deer accident, Dean Rodeheaver, a UW-GB assistant chancellor said.
"This university was built on a natural habitat for deer, but there are no longer any natural controls on the population," he said.
Despite the presence of hunters on campus, school officials noted student safety will not be threatened.
"If we had any concerns about safety, we would close the arboretum and prevent people from entering," Rodeheaver said.
The hunters will be required to hunt in stands at least 12 feet off the ground and at least 100 yards away from any trails. Hunting from stands ensures that the arrows will have a downward trajectory and a limited range. Also, the hunting will be limited to six select areas on campus, and only six hunters — subject to police background checks — will be allowed to hunt.
"The hunters will be required to keep track of all arrows they shoot, and report any missing arrows to the university," Rodeheaver added.
In the past, the deer population was checked by the large number of car-deer crashes on Highway 54/57, which Robert Howe of the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity said was not exactly the most desirable method of population control.
"This year, a fence was erected to reduce the number of car crashes," he said. "While this has been successful, the deer no longer have any major mortality factor affecting them."
In addition to causing car accidents, the deer also destroy wildflowers and prevent tree regeneration in the arboretum, he noted.
Howe maintained, though, that the university is not looking to completely remove the animals from the arboretum.
"We're not trying to eliminate the deer from campus, we just want to control the population so a balanced ecosystem can be maintained," Howe said.
The deer population control program was first implemented in Brown County in 2003, according to Jon Bechle of the Brown County Land Conservation department, and the program broadened to include UW-GB when "[t]he university contacted us about extending the program onto the campus."
"They recognized they had a problem, and contacted us to find the best way to go about addressing it," Bechle said, adding that since hunting does not normally take place at this time of year, there is no check on the deer population.
In subsequent years the program will run from Feb. 6 to April 1.
