ROANOKE, VA – From restaurants to roadways, Roanoke Police say deer are becoming a year-round problem.
“We have seen them on Gainsboro. We’ve seen them on Main Street. We’ve seen them on Peters Creek. We see them on 581, 220. They can be everywhere.” Lieutenant William Drake said.
You may think they tend to stick to the woods, but wildlife biologist Ali Davis tells 10 News that urban areas can be a deer’s dream vacation spot.
“Cities can act as sanctuaries for a lot of species, but specifically deer. There’s lots of landscaping, there are lots of good food resources that are easily accessible so they don’t have to work as hard to get them. They also don’t have those predators,” Davis said.
But when the population booms, wildlife health coordinator Alexandra Lombard says, it can cause issues for deer and humans alike.
“So Chronic Wasting Disease is a fatal neurological disease that affects deer species and it spreads very easily from deer to deer,” Lombard said.
Chronic Wasting Disease is a large problem in Northern Virginia, but it’s also in the New River Valley.
“So, there is that little bit of gray area that makes it so that, you know, it is probably better to not consume deer meat if it has tested positive for chronic wasting disease,” Lombard said.
Aside from CWD, they’re also destroying landscapes and jumping in front of cars.
Hunters take care of some of the problem, but Davis says it’s not enough.
“In some urban areas, that’s not always possible,” Davis said.
That’s why local law enforcement is allocating money to contract deer culling - or sharpshooting efforts to remove them from the population.
“If you’re seeing a large quantity of deer in your neighborhoods or you’re concerned about them, please don’t hesitate to contact the Roanoke Police Department and we can forward that information on to the contractor team,” Drake said.