We continuously hear of Maine’s coastal islands, where many residents live, overrun with deer. Residents have had to resort to killing deer in order to limit the destruction the deer can cause. This perceived phenomenon has existed for a very long time and yet is incompletely reported as some sort of modern event without historical perspective to give people a full understanding of how common deer migration to the islands has been and continues to be. What might be lacking in all this is a rational explanation as to why.
The Portland Press Herald reports that, “Deer are surprisingly good swimmers and have found their way to islands all along the coast, where they face no threats from predators and gradually grow in number until they virtually overrun the communities.”
Let’s put a bit more historical perspective on this.
First, readers should understand that deer are not completely stupid animals. They are quite adaptive to their changing surroundings. An unrecognized example is that deer are learning to winter outside of their traditional “deer yards” because they are tired of being harassed by predators, i.e. coyotes, bobcats, lynx, etc. (bears in the Spring). I have witnessed this “phenomenon” myself. More people need to learn this fact as well.
Deer, not unlike any living creature, need to eat, have reasonable survivable habitat and exist in the least dangerous environment. These changing conditions force deer to adjust their habits and adapt…or die. These are some of the reasons we are witness to more and more deer, and other wildlife living in our backyards. Unfortunately, man haters can only see that this phenomenon exists because man keeps encroaching on the deer. Instead of understanding that man’s existence has created some of the best habitat historically for deer, which is a magnate for them.
But none of this is really new. In the book, “Early Maine Wildlife: Historical Accounts of Canada Lynx, Moose, Mountain Lion, White-Tailed Deer, Wolverine, Wolves, and Woodland Caribou – 1603-1930,” by William B. Krohn and Christopher L. Hoving, we read that, since the beginning of the time that man inhabited Maine, deer would swim the distances from the mainland to the islands to escape the natural predators.
In a multi-part series I did about the wolves written in this book, I wrote this about the island deer:
“This particular presentation I have chosen, comes from work done by a W. Wood in 1977, New
