Meeting planned to discuss deer collisions increase in Ross

Commission VP dates deer problem to 2010

At night, headlights reflect from eyes in the darkness east of McKnight Road as white-tailed deer feast on a backyard smorgasbord that stretches from Siebert Road to Nelson Run Road.

When residents gather for an informational meeting on deer management policy Tuesday evening at the Ross Municipal Center, whitetails will gather, too, just beyond the ballfield for nightly browsing and road crossings that have caused increasing concern throughout the community.

“I’m hearing it from everybody,” said Dan DeMarco, the Ross commission vice president who called the meeting. “Wherever I go, people want to talk about the deer.”

Considered by biologists a novel “keystone species,” deer eat the habitat needed by every animal around them — a mature deer eats one ton of flora per year.

As Zeb Campbell, wildlife conservation officer for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, is likely to explain at the meeting, each doe reaches sexual maturity within one year and almost all breed. Wellnourished in urban neighborhoods and with no predators controlling adults, they often bear twins or triplets, doubling their population every two years.

A decade ago, Mr. DeMarco said, neighborhood complaints and deer-vehicle collisions indicated that Ross had a deer problem.

“Now, 10 years later, the problem has expanded exponentially,” he said. “It’s many times worse than it was then, but this time we can document it.”

In 2010, an effort to enact a wildlife stewardship program failed by one vote. In 2018, the Game Commission told Ross that its deer population had outgrown the

availability of wild habitat.

Mr. DeMarco pushed through a controversial deer-feeding ban, often the first step in enacting municipal deer-management programs. To date, the ban has resulted in no convictions, he said, although intentional deer feeding still occurs.

Early last year, an administrative office committee surveyed 1,500 Ross residents in all nine wards, requesting feedback on community deer concerns. The survey included several questions and documented neighborhoods with deer problems. Results from the 575 surveys returned were packaged with police deervehicle collision reports, road crew cleanup records, information about deer control options and other data and categorized by ward.

The result is a draft deer management policy posted on the township website. The report states that since 2015, 716 deer-vehicle collisions have occurred in Ross with a 5% increase from 2014 to 2017. Animal-control pickups rose from 162 in 2014 to 199 in 2017.

“We asked, ‘Is there a deer problem in Ross?’ ” Mr. DeMarco said. “In Ward 1, 84% said yes. Eighth ward, 72% said yes. Ross Park Mall area, 74%, yes. North of that in the 9th ward, 76%, yes. It was pretty conclusive that a lot of Ross residents want us to do something about the deer,”

Mr. DeMarco said that in 2010 Ross was not ready to deal with the deer. He said he hoped the meeting will be attended by residents opposed to deer control, supportive of some methods of control, in favor of reducing deer density and those who wanted more information.

“We have some data,” he said. “The question for us now is what to do.”

The Ross deer management policy meeting begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Ross Municipal Center Park, 1000 Ross Municipal Dr.