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By Marshall Jones
Special to the Rappahannock News
No species of wildlife in Virginia
has more effect on the natural
landscape and on human society than the white-tailed deer. Whether you are a nature-lover, ecologist, hunter, sightseer, farmer, gardener, law enforcement officer, or a traffic engineer, the odds are great that the Virginia white-tailed deer has a major impact on your life and your work.
And no region of Virginia has felt those effects more than the Northern Piedmont. From the wilds of Rappahannock County to the mart developed parts of Fairfex County, deer are influencing our lives and every*' thing around us as never before. < y /
Deer remain our most popular ani- ; mal species, with surveys showing that more than two-thirds of all trips to view wildlife am talan first of all to find deer. The sight of a deer effortlessly bounding over art' impossibly high obstacle can take your breath away, no matter how many tunes you’ve seen it
However, the growing population of white-tails, combined with the effects of humans moving into their habitat have also put them into the classic “high positives, high negatives” sitting tion. Virginia is now number seven on the list of states with the worst deer— vehicle collision rates. Recent studies ' have documented the growing ecological effects cm forests and birds of large deer populations. And the deer’s voracious appetite has made it unwelcome in countless orchards, farms, and gardens. ■ %
In response to these growing complaints, the deer population needs to be reduced in most of the counties in the Northern Piedmont, according to the new Deer Management Plan released in June by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. This plan, which was developed using the latest available data about deer and human populations, sets goals to reduce the deer population an private lands in Clarke, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties, and to stabilize th® population jin Culpeper and Rappahannock Counties.
A problem of
our own creation
One fact is clear - the deer population problems we have today are our own creation. By 1900, relentless over harvest had eliminated deer from all of
75.5%