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<br />1 <br /> <br />Ramsey County Parks and Recreation Department <br />2016 Ramsey County Cooperative Deer Management Program <br /> <br />The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in December of 1999 approved a deer population <br />management plan. Since the approval of the plan, the Parks and Recreation Department has <br />implemented an annual deer management program, which includes the use of archery and/or sharp <br />shooting as deer management tools. Aerial surveys are conducted annually during the winter to <br />determine deer herd populations. Deer herd goals are set and management tools can be used maintain <br />or reduce deer herd populations. Deer herd populations that exceed the carrying capacity of the land <br />can be detrimental to the overall health of the herd and impact the public through increased car/deer <br />collisions and the spread of deer ticks that may carry Lyme’s disease. The 2016 management program <br />was approved by the Ramsey County Parks Commission on April 13, 2016. <br /> <br /> <br />Annual Archery Program <br /> <br />Annual archery hunts are held at County park locations, in conjunction with neighboring municipalities, <br />and a number of agencies and municipalities are conducting or planning deer management programs in <br />addition to the management programs on County property. This includes the Arden Hills Army Training <br />Site, H.B. Fuller, and the Cities of Little Canada, Maplewood, North Oaks, Shoreview, St. Paul. The cities <br />of Gem Lake, Vadnais Heights and White Bear Township still allow archery hunting on private property. <br /> <br />Ramsey County Parks and Recreation Department (RCPRD), in cooperation with the affected <br />municipalities, is proposing to conduct special archery hunts on 8 County properties in the fall of 2016, <br />see Attachment 1. The program will be conducted using special archery hunts during the regular <br />archery season. Participants will be selected through the Metro Bowhunters Resource Base (MBRB) and <br />hunts will be restricted to dates established by the RCPRD. Archers will be allowed to keep the deer <br />shot during the regular season. These hunts are expected to remove 85-137 deer. A total of 88 deer <br />were harvested during the 2015 season, see Attachment 2, which includes 2015 hunt summary and <br />harvest stats. <br /> <br />Sharp Shooting Program <br /> <br />Firearm sharpshooting can be used to quickly reduce numbers to a safe level in areas where the deer <br />herd has far exceed the population goals. RCPRD used sharpshooting in 2005 as a deer reduction option <br />in conjunction within the cities of Maplewood and St. Paul. In 2014 and 2015, RCPRD aided the City of <br />Maplewood with coordinating sharpshooting on City and County land. RCPRD, in cooperation with the <br />affected municipalities, is proposing to allow sharpshooting on County land for the winter of 2016/2017 <br />in select areas as needed. <br /> <br />2016 Aerial Deer Surveys <br /> <br />An aerial survey was completed in February 2016 and a total of 482 deer were counted within the <br />survey boundaries, which is a substantial decrease from the 983 deer counted during the last survey <br />conducted in 2014. See Attachment 3 for aerial survey map.