White-tailed deer monitoring at Wilson’s Creek National Battleﬁeld, Missouri: 2005–2022 trend report

Peitz, David

doi:10.36967/2295163

The Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network has monitored white-tailed deer over an 18-year period (2005–2022) within a defined survey area of Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, documenting both a rapid decline and recovery in the population. The rapid die-off was the result of a region-wide hemorrhagic disease outbreak reported by the Missouri Department of Conservation that started in the fall of 2005, six months after we initiated deer monitoring. Although declines occurred 2005 to 2007, 2016 to 2017, and 2019 to 2022, the deer population still increased on average by 7.2% annually. The number of deer in the survey area ranged from a low of 14.9 ± 10.1 (mean ± 95% CI) individuals/km2 in 2007 to a high of 167.2 ± 57.4 individuals/km2 in 2016. The visible area surveyed each year varied between 0.7 and 1.1 km2 (coefficient of variation = 14.1%). Annual deer harvest data in the area nearby Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield exhibit similar trends to our annual adjusted counts suggesting that factors other than hunting maybe driving annual changes in deer population size in most years. However, these trends were not significantly correlated (r = 0.34, p = 0.33), so this relationship is only speculative. Overall, the increasing number of deer pose several problems for Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. First, increasing deer populations add a level of complexity to implementing Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Cultural Landscape Report recommendations. Deer preferentially browse native vegetation over exotic vegetation, promoting the spread of exotic species, and the success of tree plantings can be curtailed by heavy deer browsing. Second, controlling deer-related disease, some of which can affect domestic livestock and human health in and around the park, becomes increasingly harder as the deer population increases. Third, as additional ancillary data suggests, the largely unreported and costly deer-vehicle collisions in and around Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield have the potential to increase when there are more deer.

White-tailed deer monitoring at Wilson’s Creek National Battleﬁeld, Missouri: 2005–2022 trend report

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