Endangered Key deer face threats from humans, cars, habitat loss

Key deer fawns are about 2 pounds, about the size of a house cat, at birth. They stay with their mothers for up to 2 years. Photos courtesy of NFWS.

In the Florida Keys, a little deer, relative of its wild whitetail cousins on the mainland, struggles to survive modern times, with mixed results.

Key deer stand less than 3-feet-tall and weigh less than 60 pounds. For at least 11,000 years, they have roamed the islands, easily swimming from key to key.

The deer have survived hundreds of years of human hunting which, by the 1950s, had reduced their numbers to extinction level of about 50. But conservation efforts, and a law banning hunting, raised their numbers. Today about 800 live in the Keys, protected in part by the National Key Deer Refuge, an 8,542-acre park, located on Big Pine Key and No Name Key.

The little deer have lost their fear of people and calmly wander into yards, parks — and onto roads.

The roads take between 125 and 150 deer every year, accounting for 70 percent of the deaths among the deer, according to keydeerday.com.

Habitat destruction by human encroachment causes many deer to feed on non-native ornamental plants. By August 2019, according to NPR, most individuals were living on only one of the key islands, Big Pine Key, where fresh water and their preferred food of mangroves and palm berries are preserved.

The little deer are resilient, however. In 2017, as Hurricane Irma swept over the islands, many feared the destruction of the herd. Yet, the deer survived, with only 21 deaths attributed to the hurricane.

Touching, harassing or possessing a Key deer is a federal offense and residents of the Keys are urged not to feed the deer or leave trash out. In populated areas, the deer can be attacked by dogs and sometimes humans. In 2017, two men actually kidnapped three Key deer because, they said, they wanted to take a picture with them. One was sentenced to a year in federal prison.