Conservation Target : White-tailed Deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ) Management Goal : Restore and sustain a huntable deer population while minimizing human- deer conflict. Biological Conditions Unknown density/health, stable habitat Contributed Service Future Provisioning, Supporting, Cultural Conservation Strategies Monitoring, Management, Research History and Adaptive Process: White-tailed Deer are tied to the history and culture of the Cherokee people as Deer Clan “A-ni Ka-wi", is one of the seven representative clans. At its height, up to one million deer skin pelts were taken annually from our region, which caused deer to nearly become extinct. Fortunately, the deer-skin trade ended by ~1800. Many restoration attempts followed over the next 150 years. Today, in North America, White-tailed Deer are extremely common throughout their range. Despite continued efforts of restocking, deer abundance within North Carolina is unevenly dispersed, with lower abundance in the mountains. The low densities prevent traditional harvesting of these animals; therefore, it is incredibly important for our office to work to restore and maintain these animals. Over the last hundred years, there have been several efforts to increase densities of deer. From 1900, managers have stocked 60 different efforts in western North Carolina with 3,387 total deer relocated and released. One of these efforts included releasing over 257 individuals on EBCI lands. These efforts involved much effort from our staff as the acclimation, tracking, and survival assessments of these animals occurred over ~6 years, following stocking efforts from 2014-2016. We determined that even habituated deer survival is no different from fearful deer when restocking- which can aid in efforts of relocating animals. Since our restocking efforts, there have been anecdotal assessments that densities have had a slight increase. Currently, we looked to road mortalities and the hunting community in surrounding counties to gather tissue samples to evaluate the success of this project. We believe we can find this population within today’s animals as descendants likely continue to contribute to the overall population. We have ascertained through historical and ecological work, that large-scale habitat management is the most important tool for bringing back white-tailed deer to Cherokee citizens. We also believe that our land management efforts need to expand well beyond small food plots and that we will need to work across jurisdictional boundaries and implement large-scale fire programs to open understory areas. MANAGEMENT ACTIONS Current Methodology for Conservation Strategies Monitoring: Haphazard collection- road mortalities. Necropsy animals for age, health, and disease – collecting samples for genetic population testing. Management: General wildlife plots that contribute to fawning environments and forage. Perform outreach with landowners and public to mitigate conflict issues. Research: Work on report of deer-restocking and tracking efforts. Does the behavioral condition of stocked deer influence their success?
Results and Discussion for Information Transfer and Processing Ecological: Minimal habitat for deer forage and breeding.
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