About 50 axis deer crowded around the fence line separating Maui Nui Botanical Gardens and Keopuolani Regional Park, startling the gardens staff on a recent Thursday afternoon.
The threat posed by the invasive deer was alarming because the gardens serve as a seed bank and are home to some of Hawaii’s rarest endemic and native plants.
“One night, with a herd like that, and a lot of our garden would be destroyed,” said executive director Tamara Sherrill.
The appearance of deer on the outskirts of Maui Nui Botanical Gardens is a reminder of the difficulty in containing the ungulates despite the risk they pose to the environment, agriculture and public safety.
Private and public hunters typically kill about 7,000 deer annually across Maui County, which includes Maui, Molokai and Lanai, but that number rose this year to about 17,000 thanks to permitted control efforts, public hunting and a new incentive program for landowners.
The success of the incentive scheme, which offers money in exchange for deer tails, means the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife has invited landowners to apply for another round of funding to reduce their deer populations with a Nov. 25 deadline to submit their proposals and a Dec. 15 start date.
The land adjacent to the botanical gardens is a county-owned park. Sherrill suspects barking dogs in the park pushed the deer toward the garden fence line on Nov. 7, the largest herd she’s seen there in her 20-plus years working with the organization.
“So far we’ve been lucky the fence has held since I’ve been here,” Sherrill said.
Deer have long posed a threat to the gardens. A lone buck snuck through a hole in the fence a few years ago, causing minor damage.
Managing deer on county land is complicated, especially in a park because killing deer there is a public safety problem, Sherrill said.
The state, which has been working alongside Maui County to help alleviate the problem, has issued 17 emergency proclamations since early 2022 to free up money for deer population-control programs.
Axis deer, originally from South Asia, were introduced to Hawaii in the late-1860s when several were gifted to King Kamehameha V and released on Molokai.
About 34,000 deer survive in the islands, according to DOFAW, almost half the estimated 2022 population of 60,000.
The current population estimate is still almost double the DOFAW’s 18,000-head estimate from January. Jeff Bagshaw, a Maui-based outreach specialist for the division, said the difference results from newer and more accurate surveying methods, including drones and infrared imagery.
Studies have found each animal causes $50-$275 in damage to agricultural crops annually. A 2012 study found deer cost county farms, ranches and resorts over $2 million.
The 17,000 kill rate for 2024 is on track with the state’s goals of eliminating 15,000-20,000 deer annually, a number intended to limit their impact on the landscape while keeping some around for hunting and recreation.
Landowners and state land lessees have become big players in recent control efforts as part of the DOFAW program that put a price on deer tails of $25-$50 apiece. The division was unable to say how many of the 17,000 deer killed this year were connected to the program.
Participants are expected to kill one deer for every 10 acres with a minimum of 50 deer taken, making the minimum property size 500 acres. During the last cycle that began in January, 17 landowners applied for the program and all of them received funding.
The program — now in its fourth round — is the most effective control measure, said County Council member Yuki Lei Sugimura, who was instrumental in the 2021 formation of the Maui Axis Deer Task Force.
“It has been making a huge impact,” Sugimura said. “They figured out how to do it.”
Ranchers are not entirely happy though, as some would like to have night hunting included in eligible harvesting activities under the DOFAW contracts, said Brendan Balthazar, vice president of the Maui Cattlemen’s Council.
Balthazar has run Diamond B Ranch on Maui’s southeastern coast since 1968 and said the impacts of the grass-munching deer have forced ranchers to reduce their cattle herds by half. Balthazar is running just over 420 head of cattle.
This year alone, Balthazar and his cowboys have killed just shy of 450 deer on his ranch through the program.
The state allocated $6.1 million in the 2024-25 state budget to address the invasive deer, while Maui County has ponied up $300,000 each for the islands of Maui, Lanai and Molokai.
Landowners and state land lessees on Molokai and Lanai are also eligible for the DOFAW program. The division’s efforts to estimate the deer populations on those islands are underway.
The mitigation efforts have not stopped deer from making their way into human settlements, including roadways. They continue to cause car crashes, many of which go unreported, Yukimura said.
Last May, two does and a stag were spotted trotting through Kahului Airport. There have also been reports of deer posing a risk to airplanes at Kalaupapa Airport on Molokai.
But the biggest concern of the Division of Forestry and Wildlife is the risk deer pose to watersheds, given their importance in the face of climate change, fresh water availability and the state’s food system.
Killing all the deer is off the table, as communities around the state advocate for keeping them around for food and recreation.
Regulations and expenses make it difficult to get venison into the food system. Balthazar said many of the deer killed on Diamond B Ranch were buried.
Some hunters take issue with the state’s approach to deer control, and complain that large landowners are unwilling to let them onto their land to hunt.
The way hunters have historically harvested deer is part of the population issue, creating a lopsided gender ratio, Bagshaw said.
They typically seek deer with larger antlers, and the result is fewer males competing for breeding opportunities.
“The harem’s all the much bigger for the rest of the males,” Bagshaw said. “Less stress means more sex, that’s just part of the ecology.”
Another part of the ecology is Hawaii’s lack of predators — other than humans.
In South Asia, the deer’s native range, the population ratio is one-to-one, female to male, but DOFAW estimates Maui has nine does for every buck. The deer’s natural predators in South Asia — tigers, leopard, crocodiles, wolves and pythons — generally kill does and bucks in equal numbers.
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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.