MOUNT VERNON — They may delight the hiker, but too many deer can gnaw away at the natural beauty of the forest.
Four years ago, a special hunting program was instituted to help manage the number of deer living in Wolf Run Regional Park, which is located just outside Mount Vernon on Yauger Road. The 288-acre park is starting to see the signs of possible overpopulation in the deer herd, and the Knox County Park District wants to keep this from getting any worse.
“It is more of a game management program than a hunting program,” said Knox County Park District operations manager Doug McClarnan. “We have a very high population of deer along the edge of Mount Vernon, and Wolf Run has an even higher population. The purpose of the program is not hunting, but game management. The deer are browsing the park very closely, and a browse line is visible on the trees.”
Hunt master John Albert regulates who hunts in the park, and when. There are currently fewer than 10 hunters who manage the herd. Participants in the program cannot hunt the deer on the weekend, and must be given special hunting permission by the Knox County Park District. Does are the only deer harvested in an effort to help manage the park’s ever-increasing deer herd, and the hunters are required to stay away from the hiking trails during hunting.
Overpopulation is the biggest concern of the park district. According to McClarnan, if there are too many deer in the area they will start eating a large amount of vegetation. The flowers that grow naturally in the park, as well as the young trees in the woods will all be eaten by the deer.
“When you see an area with a high number of crashes, or an area that has had a lot of its shrubbery browsed off, that’s an indicator that the deer population is pretty healthy,” said McClarnan. “The problem is when the population gets too high, you start to see chronic wasting diseases and other things that are very bad for the deer and other animals.”
According to the Ohio Highway Patrol, there have been 510 deer-related traffic accidents in Knox County this year.
“We have seen a very limited number of deer taken from the park. Last time I checked only 15 had been killed this year,” said McClarnan. “When you think that the park holds quite a number of deer, this is just barely touching the population. I know that any one time I have seen 70 deer in the park. You can see all kinds of deer beds in there when it snows, and you can almost always see 10 or 15 deer in there.”
To find out how to help control the high number of deer in the Wolf Run Regional Park, visit the Knox County Park District online, at www.knoxcountyparks.org.