GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Reports of deer in Grand Rapids damaging private landscaping nearly tripled in 2022. That same year, the collection of deer carcasses by the city staff reached a four-year high.
Now, Grand Rapids leaders plan to work with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to determine if the city has a deer problem.
“The next formal step would be that we request that the DNR maybe look at our community and see what the population is so we can make an informed and scientific decision about if we need to do anything or not,” 2nd Ward commissioner Jon O’Connor said Tuesday, Aug. 22, during the commission’s public safety committee meeting.
The committee recommended city staff reach out to DNR about whether there is a deer issue and, if so, what can be done.
County officials will also be involved in the discussions, according to the city. A timeframe for those talks hasn’t been established.
One widely-used solution offered by DNR is issuing permits for deer culls, or the lethal reduction of a local deer population, usually using sharpshooters. But solutions also include education efforts, such as sharing what landscaping plants are less palatable to deer.
The department does not relocate deer and rarely conducts sterilization programs.
The deer issue was raised by O’Connor, who in June said he had been receiving a lot of complaints about the deer population in the city. He asked city staff to bring forward data about deer-vehicle collisions, nuisance reports and more.
Data presented Tuesday by Grand Rapids Public Services Managing Director James Hurt showed deer nuisance reports and deer carcass collections have both significantly increased between 2019 to 2022.
Deer nuisance calls are those in which a resident reports a deer is damaging private landscaping, Hurt said.
Here are the number of deer nuisance calls to the city’s 3-1-1 customer service line in recent years:
- 2019: 10 calls
- 2020: 13 calls
- 2021: 16 calls
- 2022: 40 calls
- 2023 (through July 14): 12 calls
The number of deer carcasses picked up by the city’s Public Works Department has also increased in recent years:
- 2019: 129 deer carcasses
- 2020: 159 deer carcasses
- 2021: 241 deer carcasses
- 2022: 301 deer carcasses
- 2023 (as of Aug. 16): 116 deer carcasses
Traffic crashes involving deer in the city have fluctuated somewhat between 2018 and 2022, but remained within a range of about 78 to 100 crashes per year during that time. Those figures account for all deer-vehicle crashes in the city in which a law enforcement officer filled out a crash report.
In 2022, there were 84 of those deer crashes, up from 78 in 2021 but down from 100 in 2020. As of July 6, there have been 21 crashes in 2023.
Kent County had 2,250 vehicle-deer crashes in 2022, more than any other county in Michigan, according to the state’s annual traffic crash report. As a state, Michigan had at least a five-year high for car-deer crashes last year at 58,984.
Chad Stewart, a DNR deer biologist, said the department often doesn’t conduct deer population studies for cities due to costs as well as possible inaccuracies. Often, these studies only give a snapshot in time of a local deer population, which can vary by the season and other factors, he said.
Stewart said data showing an increasing amount of deer carcasses being collected can indicate a deer population is on the rise in a community.
Increased deer-vehicle collisions can also indicate a rising deer population, more drivers on the road or both.
Each community is different in its tolerance to deer nuisance and safety issues, and the DNR doesn’t have a specific criteria for when it would issue a deer cull permit or declare there is a problem, Stewart said.
When working with a community, DNR officials will ask municipal leaders what specific impacts from deer they’re having problems with and then offer solutions.
If local leaders feel there are an unacceptable and increasing amount of deer-vehicle crashes or nuisance issues and that a deer cull is the right solution, then the DNR is willing to permit it, Stewart said.
“It’s not for us to say whether they have a deer problem or not,” Stewart said. “We’re here to help them resolve the impacts that they are feeling.”
Stewart said the DNR often suggests communities conduct a survey, polling residents about their experiences and concerns and whether they feel there is a deer problem.
Other urban communities in Michigan have had deer culls in the past decade, including Ann Arbor and Jackson. The undertakings drew controversy.
In November 2022, Southfield voters approved an advisory question on the ballot supporting city leaders to move forward with a deer cull. This year, Whitehall city leaders approved allowing bow hunting in the city during bow season to reduce the urban deer population.
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