White-Tailed Deer Management

If you are a Chemung County resident, please complete this short survey to help us assess community deer management outreach needs - Chemung County Deer Management Survey

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Across the United States, there are growing concerns about deer-human conflict, especially in urban and suburban areas. 

Common concerns include:

• deer-vehicle collision
• property/landscaping/crop damage
• disease transmission (tick-borne)

In many areas, deer population densities are more than 5 times the sustainable level. Balanced deer populations help facilitate healthy ecosystems, but overabundance can have negative impacts. Lack of natural predation and low/no access for hunters often facilitates these issues. Additionally, deer at high density can have profound impacts on natural ecosystems, such little to no forest regeneration, degraded wildlife habitat, and promotion of invasive species. 

Concerned parties may want to explore Cornell’s Community Deer Advisor page (https://deeradvisor.dnr.cornell.edu/), which provides excellent resources for community-based deer management (CBDM). Deer advisor describes CBDM as "a four-step process designed to help your community understand residents' concerns about deer, consider a range of solutions and create an action plan to address them." Use the deer advisor page to see what other communities are doing and learn how to build a management plan that works for yours using their free online course.

                        Community-Based Deer Management (CBDM) 

Image: The 4 phases of the community-based deer management cycle

Getting Started with CBDM: Survey and observe the extent of the issue.

Phase 1: Develop a committee to gather information, assess the community's situation, and define the scope of the problem.

What is the scope of the problem?

• What impacts are there?
• Who is being impacted?
• What is the degree of impact?

Understanding deer density and habitat in management areas is imperative when answering these questions, assessing issues and developing a plan. 

Based on source information:

• deer density of <8 per square mile may significantly reduce tick populations
• deer density of <20 per square mile may significantly reduce tick bite risk
• deer density of >15 per square mile has negative environmental impacts 

Deer removal has been shown as the most effective means to meet community deer management goals. Often there are barriers with deer removal, including hunting ordinances (discharge distance of archery equipment or firearms), money, participation, and community opposition. In many cases, communities adopt different practices that work best for their situation and needs. 

Habitat management practices such as invasive species removal, coupled with other deer management practices, may help meet community goals - like reducing tick encounters. Habitat provided by invasive plant species can promote issues related to ticks and tick-borne illness by providing deer, rodents, and ticks a place to thrive.

Figure: A timeline representing the 2-year lifecycle of deer ticks. 

In the side bar are additional resources and references from Cornell University, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Department of the Interior (DOI), and other local organizations and municipalities with information regarding deer management and associated issues.

Last updated July 1, 2025