ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-JAMAICA: Battling the Deer Invasion

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sam Pragg

KINGSTON, Dec 20 1998 (IPS) - The Blue Mountain range in Jamaica is often seen as a major tourist attraction, for those visitors looking for beauty off the beaten track.

Not popular with the American tourist, the Blue Mountains have been a hit with the Europeans. These visitors would hike along well- cut trails, and enjoy the tropical vegetation and picturesque scenery.

But now the Blue Mountains have been invaded by a different type of visitor.

Hundreds of what is suspected to be the American whitetail deer are beginning to overrun the more remote regions of Jamaica’s largest mountain range. These temperate mammals, who normally inhabit snow- capped mountains in North America, are reproducing in great numbers in the mountains.

“These creatures are used to snow through to fairly warm temperatures of 70 to 80 degrees (Fahrenheit),” says Roger Williams, manager of the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park. “In the northern United States, summer temperatures can reach that high. The Blue Mountains has the perfect temperature for them.”

In the Blue Mountains, the average temperature is in the mid 70s all year-round.

Several of these deer were imported into the island as a tourist attraction in the eastern parish of Portland.

The deer population explosion, as some people are describing it started when a number of the animals escaped from the Somerset Falls property in Portland during the devastation caused by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. These animals fled to the wild forests of the surrounding Blue Mountains, and now there are reportedly hundreds of them roaming the region.

And while the animals are proving popular with the tourists, small farmers already suffering from the effects of unfavourable weather conditions on their crops have been calling for their eradication as they say they are threatening their very survival.

In the months leading up to the winter season they reportedly eat voraciously, and this habit has taken a severe toll on the crops of farmers.

“The government needs to do something about these pests. Them going mash up we agriculture, which we need to survive,” says 45- year- old farmer, Opal Davis.

Officers of the government body, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), in Portland have reported that at least 35 farmers have complained of losing their crops to the animals. They claim that the deer have taken a liking to their pumpkins and carrots, and are now developing a taste for tropical fruits such as avocado and mangoes.

And not satisfied with the rate at which the authorities are moving to solve the problem, some farmers are taking matters into their own hands.

Donovan Tyrell says he has already shot six deer, and now has dogs trained to track the animals.

“We would like to get rid of them, because them causing a lot of damage,” Tyrell says. “After them breed up, farming done in Jamaica.”

According to Williams, the best solution might be to cull the herd. But that is difficult, seeing how difficult it is to catch them, and how little is known about deer in Jamaica.

“It’s hard to talk about what to do. Scientifically, we know little or nothing about them,” he says.

“There’s no natural predator to the deer in Jamaica, so there’s nothing that can control it in the wild,” says Andrea Donaldson of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA). “If the population gets out of control, if it continues feeding on people’s crops, it may just move further into the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park and cause further damage in an area that is already under stress.”

But some observers say the population is already out of control. Apart from the Content and Windsor Castle areas in Portland, the animals have been reportedly seen in the New York and Shrewsbury communities, and it is said that they heavily populate the Swift River Valley area in that parish.

“There have been sightings in upper St Andrew, which means they have crested the ridge,” says Williams. ‘They have come over from Portland through a highly inaccessible area. That means that the population in Swift River Valley is fairly large, and has forced them out.”

Environmentalist Robert Kerr thinks the deer sightings provide a good opportunity to boost the tourism industry.

“Having heard about it, we wanted to do an exploratory trip to see what kind of tourism could develop,” he says

He would like to see a systematic approach taken to determining the population of deer in the island and this he says can be done by conducting a proper survey, including tagging and tracking.

“Unless we know exactly how many animals and all the details, including whether they have any diseases or dangerous parasites, it’s difficult to prescribe any sort of solution to the problem,” he says.

The farmers are not impressed, however.

“Robert Kerr has it completely wrong if he thinks that tourists ….would be interested in viewing deer devastating the fragile forestry and agricultural resources of a country,” says Keith Hibbert a farmer.

“In Canada, which has natural predators to the deer, they have not been able to resolve the ecological disaster of deer overpopulation, or solve the problems of the unfortunate frequent encounters between deers and humans, such as deer crashing into windows and windshields.

“Let us immediately reject the idea of introducing and promoting an alien species to Jamaica unless we are prepared to deal with the safety issues, and with the serious consequences of damage to our agriculture and forestry resources,” he adds.

Rhema Kerr, curator of Hope Zoo in Kingston agrees.

‘This could be a disaster in the making,’ she says.. ‘The deer population has to be intensely managed. It could be a disaster in terms of the crops and what they could do to the forests.’

“The rate of deforestation in Jamaica is higher than it is in most countries. The rate will be dramatically increased if we do not move quickly to get the American whitetail deer population in Portland under control,” adds Hibbert.