White Tailed Deer

The Bryn Athyn Borough Council has instructed its Board of Health to look into a connection between white-tailed deer and a number of cases of Lyme's disease recently reported in the borough and surrounding areas. At its meeting Monday night, the Council asked the Board of Health to seek information from the Pennypack Watershed Association, a wildlife management organization, for results of a study it conducted on the problem. Lyme's disease is named after a small town in Connecticut, where the first case was reported.

This, you know: Cross-country skiers will choose a secluded forest trail over a popular black diamond run every time. But, shhhh, don't tell: Backcountry ski trails don't come much better than those on many national wildlife refuges. That's still largely a secret. Scenic wildlife refuges ideal for winter exploration by ski and snowshoe hide in many Northern states. The terrain and difficulty level vary widely. Some refuges lend ski equipment free or rent it at low cost. Wildlife sightings are a bonus.

A restudy of the Krewstown Road Bridge, an alcohol ban and the white-tailed deer overpopulation in Pennypack Park were among the topics discussed at a meeting of the Friends of Pennypack Park last week.. Bill Mifflin, executive director of the Fairmount Park Commission, told the group Thursday that the Streets Department was restudying its position on the Krewstown Bridge. Last fall, the department presented several plans on the bridge to the group, which asked that the bridge be closed and traffic rerouted.

There's no question deer are notorious nibblers, munching away on crops, carefully nurtured plants in backyards, and the buds of young trees trying to reach the forest canopies that stand high above. The question of exactly how much they eat and how much damage they may be doing to forests in this area has yet to be answered. It is a task Joan M. Welch, a professor in West Chester University's department of geography and planning, has taken on as a sort of personal quest. For the last three years, Welch, with the help of numerous undergraduates, has carefully counted and documented the number of buds and stems outside six fenced-off areas of Warwick County Park, where white-tailed deer can nip them off, and compared the numbers to those for areas inside the fences.

Officer George Bengal, director of law enforcement at the Pennsylvania SPCA, came out of a Feltonville house yesterday carrying box after box of dead animal parts and skins. After hours of digging through the dirt in an enclosed back area of the house and searching through the clutter of the house, PSPCA investigators found the remains of about 400 to 500 animals strewn throughout the house or buried in the ground in the back enclosed area, Bengal later said. The remains included "possibly" the carcasses of two monkeys, he said.

One day in early June, Jane Williams-Hogan was walking in the wooded area near her parents' home along the Pennypack Creek in Huntingdon Valley, when she noticed a tick on the back of her right knee. Bending down to remove it, she told her husband that it was the smallest tick she had ever seen. Within a week, Williams-Hogan felt unusually tired and developed chills and a fever. Two weeks later, a ringed rash appeared around the site of the bite, gradually widening until it was 5 or 6 inches in diameter.

In February, the White Clay Creek Preserve in southern Chester County was home to 141 white-tailed deer, 100 more than the preserve can handle. As a result, said Gregory Schrum, an official of the state Department of Environmental Resources, the preserve will be open this fall and winter for archery hunters in an attempt to cut down the number. The decision marks the first time the state has set aside parkland solely for archers. "We did not expect White Clay Creek Preserve to have a deer problem of this magnitude," said Schrum, chief of the environmental management section for the Bureau of State Parks.

PLYMOUTH, N.H. - When Henry Ahern's first 27 red deer ambled off the trailer and onto his grandfather's farm 13 years ago, he was just looking for a way to save the 200 acres from developers. He'd considered farming cattle, elk, bison or even fish. But when he learned that the United States imported more than 3 million pounds of deer meat a year from New Zealand, he became convinced a niche domestic market could be created. He was right. Since he started Bonnie Brae Farms, farmed venison has become a fast-growing cottage industry fueled by strong interest in the low-fat, low-cholesterol meat with all the flavor but none of the gamy bitterness of its wild cousin.

The most dangerous wild animal in Pennsylvania has caused 60 deaths and nearly 4,400 serious injuries during the last seven years; it also carries an often debilitating and sometimes fatal disease. The same menacing creature is ruining crops, destroying valuable timber, stripping the woods of seedlings, changing the very nature of forests, killing nursery stock, and ravaging the lawns, gardens and golf courses of suburban Pennsylvania. It's not the bobcat, the black bear, wild boar, or rattlesnake.

HOMEOWNERS LEAVING A typical day in the life of a Philadelphian: After a long hard day at work, I walked into my hone and picked up my mail. I find a notice telling me my real estate assessment has been increased. I know that Mayor Goode says this is no tax increase. Allow me to educate you, Willie, no matter what your drones tell you it is, it is, in fact, money out of every homeowner's pocket. Now I settle down with my evening newspaper and read that Mayor Goode wants to spend millions of our tax dollars to stop a basketball team from moving four miles away.

This, you know: Cross-country skiers will choose a secluded forest trail over a popular black diamond run every time. But, shhhh, don't tell: Backcountry ski trails don't come much better than those on many national wildlife refuges. That's still largely a secret. Scenic wildlife refuges ideal for winter exploration by ski and snowshoe hide in many Northern states. The terrain and difficulty level vary widely. Some refuges lend ski equipment free or rent it at low cost. Wildlife sightings are a bonus.

The most dangerous wild animal in Pennsylvania has caused 60 deaths and nearly 4,400 serious injuries during the last seven years; it also carries an often debilitating and sometimes fatal disease. The same menacing creature is ruining crops, destroying valuable timber, stripping the woods of seedlings, changing the very nature of forests, killing nursery stock, and ravaging the lawns, gardens and golf courses of suburban Pennsylvania. It's not the bobcat, the black bear, wild boar, or rattlesnake.

Officer George Bengal, director of law enforcement at the Pennsylvania SPCA, came out of a Feltonville house yesterday carrying box after box of dead animal parts and skins. After hours of digging through the dirt in an enclosed back area of the house and searching through the clutter of the house, PSPCA investigators found the remains of about 400 to 500 animals strewn throughout the house or buried in the ground in the back enclosed area, Bengal later said. The remains included "possibly" the carcasses of two monkeys, he said.

PLYMOUTH, N.H. - When Henry Ahern's first 27 red deer ambled off the trailer and onto his grandfather's farm 13 years ago, he was just looking for a way to save the 200 acres from developers. He'd considered farming cattle, elk, bison or even fish. But when he learned that the United States imported more than 3 million pounds of deer meat a year from New Zealand, he became convinced a niche domestic market could be created. He was right. Since he started Bonnie Brae Farms, farmed venison has become a fast-growing cottage industry fueled by strong interest in the low-fat, low-cholesterol meat with all the flavor but none of the gamy bitterness of its wild cousin.

First of a series. With all due respect to Bambi, deer are the cockroaches of the animal kingdom. For millions of years, they thrived in local forests among jaguars, cheetahs and grizzly bears. Over the last century, as the economic engine of western civilization banished one species after another, deer not only survived but multiplied: From 1915 to 2004, Pennsylvania's buck harvest jumped a hundredfold. Three weeks ago, the New Jersey Audubon Society for the first time called for lethal methods - increased hunting and, in some cases, professional sharpshooters - to reduce a deer herd it said would otherwise "ultimately destroy many native terrestrial ecosystems.

They had the plan. They had the personnel. Orange safety vests? Check. Radios? Roger that. The group of determined volunteers, however motley, was ready to take on what botanists say is the most destructive element in the region's forests: the white-tailed deer. "Spread out!" called Miles Arnott. His radio crackled a confirmation from a nearby hill. They faced poison ivy, slippery rocks, thorns, brambles. But success never comes cheap. "OK!" Arnott hollered.

There's no question deer are notorious nibblers, munching away on crops, carefully nurtured plants in backyards, and the buds of young trees trying to reach the forest canopies that stand high above. The question of exactly how much they eat and how much damage they may be doing to forests in this area has yet to be answered. It is a task Joan M. Welch, a professor in West Chester University's department of geography and planning, has taken on as a sort of personal quest. For the last three years, Welch, with the help of numerous undergraduates, has carefully counted and documented the number of buds and stems outside six fenced-off areas of Warwick County Park, where white-tailed deer can nip them off, and compared the numbers to those for areas inside the fences.

If that old Wild Kingdom television show were sponsored by the National Park Service and lent a little Mission: Impossible high-tech intrigue, it might have looked like this: In the dead of a midwinter night, a small crew armed with flashlights drives a van through Valley Forge National Historical Park. White-tailed deer emerging from the cold darkness do not shy from the beams. A wildlife biologist shoots a tranquilizer dart through the air and hits one of the deer. Surprised, the deer scurries into the woods.

Ninety-nine deer were killed during a hunt Friday at Ridley Creek State Park, and 18 more were shot in a separate hunt the same day at neighboring Tyler Arboretum. The Tyler hunt marked the first time that officials allowed shotgun hunting of white-tailed deer in restricted sections of the 650-acre arboretum. Tyler has authorized archers to hunt deer there since 1992, because of the destruction of plant collections by the deer. The arboretum decided to allow the shotgun hunts this year in addition to the scheduled bow-and-arrow hunts because "the magnitude of the problem keeps increasing," said Roxanne Heaton, development director for Tyler.

Ask Mike Kaufmann to recount how he spent his summer vacation and he'll tell you about the elk that meandered through his campsite. And about his disappointment when he missed a chance to see the mountain lion that stopped by to say hello. And about the mule deer that stole his bicycle helmet and gloves. The stories tumble out in a rush, the way they do when somebody has just returned from an exhilarating trip to a special place and wants to share the experience. Kaufmann, 42, area fisheries manager for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's southeast region, and his wife, Amy, 31, recently spent three weeks bicycling and hiking through the northern Rockies.