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Because too many deer in Arkansas can be harmful to the environment and even to the deer herd itself, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, partnered with other organizations, are having their annual urban archery deer hunt this fall in a select number of communities.

Arkansas Game and Fish partnered with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, Arkansas Bow Hunters Association, the Bull Shoals Bow Hunters Association, the Hot Springs Village POA and each participating city, said Ralph Meeker, deer program coordinator for Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

The nine cities that are participating are Cherokee Village, Fairfield Bay, Heber Springs, Helena-West Helena, Horseshoe Bend, Russellville, Bull Shoals, Lakeview and Hot Springs Village.

“Our goal is deer number reduction,” Meeker said. “There are no bag limits and there are no antler point restrictions on the deer that they harvest within the cities that participate.”

Deer grow very rapidly in urban settings, Meeker said.

“(Urban deer hunting is) not just to reduce human conflicts with deer but it’s also for the benefit of the herd condition and to make sure their populations are still balanced with the habitat they’re utilizing,” he said.

Deer can cause vehicle collisions and depredation of crops and landscape, according to Meeker. Deer can also over-browse native vegetation which can have a cascading effect for other wildlife species that inhabit those areas, Meeker said.

“Deer are also a vector for ticks,” Meeker said. “The more deer you have in an area, the more ticks can be moved around which can be an issue not just for the deer but for humans and pets.”

There’s concern about possible disease risks from deer to deer.

“When you have high deer densities, if any type of disease or outbreak occurs, we worry about the spread of that disease,” Meeker said.

In an overpopulated situation, there are worries about the health of the deer herd itself, Meeker said.

“There’s only a certain amount of food able to go around for the deer that are present and so we do want to make sure that the deer populations are balanced with the habitat,” he said.

Since the urban deer hunt started 24 years ago, “the deer hit accidents are down and there is a healthier herd because of the simple fact that we’re maintaining management numbers,” said Dwayne Spangler, urban hunt director of Arkansas Crossbow Association.

Fairfield Bay mayor, Seth Connell said there’s a lot of deer in Fairfield Bay.

“I almost had one jump in front of the road in front of me just the other day; you see them everywhere,” said Connell.

“One of the great things about deer hunting is that it solves a lot of problems,” Connell said. “If you have too many, it becomes a safety issue. If you don’t have enough, it becomes a wildlife issue.”

Fairfield Bay volunteer deer coordinator, Mark Harbour said about 12 years ago they noticed a deer problem.

“They were skinny, their ribs were showing and (we) had a few automobile accidents,” Harbour said. “A lot of the residents couldn’t plant any flowers or landscape because the deer would just eat everything up that they planted.”

The city council couldn’t decide about having a deer hunt so they opted to have a vote of the general population, Harbour said. The population voted in favor of the urban deer hunt about 3 to 1, Harbour said.

“The deer look much healthier and the deer act more like deer,” Harbour said. “Instead of laying around on people’s porches acting like pets, they act more like wild animals.”

The urban archery deer hunting season is accepting registration for permits until Tuesday to bow-hunt deer.

The number of permits are unlimited.

“We typically have between 700 and 1,000 urban bow-hunters participate each year,” Meeker said. “We typically have between 700 and 1,000 deer harvested each year by those hunters.”

The urban deer hunting season begins Sept. 1 and ends the last day in February, Meeker said. The cities are allowed to shorten those days within the allotted framework, he said.

“It’s not necessarily the best method but I would say it’s a more safer method for urban situations,” Meeker said. “Modern guns are likely the most effective method but there are safety issues concerning using guns inside human populated areas, so archery is likely the most safe just because of the distance that you have to be to that animal.”

The safety track record is excellent, said Meeker. “Because of the steps that we require these hunters to go through, we’ve had zero accidents concerning the public. Safety for the public, safety for the hunter, that’s our No. 1 goal. Our No. 2 goal is to remove deer,” he said.

The regulations for urban deer hunting are a bit different than regular deer season.

The urban deer hunters have to take the International Crossbow Education Program class and go to the city specific orientation and shoot their bow proficient, Spangler said. They also need their Arkansas Game and Fish hunting license, he said.

In order to hunt on private land, hunters must have written permission, Meeker said.

“Just because they qualify to participate in the hunt, that doesn’t necessarily mean they can hunt wherever they want,” he said.

The deer still have to be checked, and each hunter’s first adult deer that is harvested has to be donated to Arkansas Hunters Feed the Hungry, Meeker said.

“In each one of the cities, we have a refrigerated trailer so all they have to do is field dress the deer, take it over and drop it in,” Spangler said.

According to Meeker, there’s 350 to 500 deer donated to Arkansas Hunters Feed the Hungry which equates anywhere from 9,000 to 15,000 pounds of processed meat.

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