Portable drive-net for capturing urban white-tailed deer
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Increasing white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) numbers in urban environments is a management problem for both natural resource agencies and urban residents because of economic (e.g., deer-vehicle collisions) and ecological (e.g., ornamental and native vegetation damage) issues associated with deer "overabundance." Reducing deer numbers using nonlethal control procedures often requires the safe (i.e., low mortality) capture of urban white-tailed deer. We describe the use of a portable drive-net to capture urban white-tailed deer. We attached nylon drive-nets of various lengths, heights, and mesh sizes to an anchor (e.g., fencepost, T-post, tree) and placed them neatly on the ground. Persons on foot would drive deer toward the drive-net while one person would pull the net vertically to coincide with deer arrival. From June 1998-October 2003, we captured 76 white-tailed deer (25 M, 51 F) in Texas and Florida using the portable drive-net. No deer mortalities were recorded, and 10 deer suffered small cuts and scrapes. The major advantages of our drive-net (i.e., simplicity, portability, selectivity, low cost, quietness, and non-invasiveness) make the technique useful for capturing urban white-tailed deer.