BIG PINE KEY, Fla. (AP) — Visitors taking a stroll around this island at dusk are likely to be treated to an enchanting sight: Tiny deer barely taller than a toddler, rummaging through garbage cans, grazing in back yards and walking up to humans without fear.
With the plucky way they amble about on their skinny legs, it’s hard to imagine that not long ago the key deer numbered fewer than 50 and were in danger of extinction.
Today, the pint-sized creatures practically overrun Big Pine Key. A half-century of conservation efforts has boosted their ranks to between 500 and 700, a figure that has remained stable for several years.
The deer — which stand less than 3 feet high at the shoulder — have become so common that some researchers say they should no longer be considered an endangered species.
“People sort of overlook the fact that the deer as a species really is a success story,” said Roel Lopez, a Texas A&M University professor who has led most of the recent deer studies.
The key deer is the smallest subspecies of the Virginia white-tailed deer. Believed to have migrated from the mainland thousands of years ago, they are only found on Big Pine Key and some surrounding keys along the string of islands at the southern tip of Florida.
Mr. Lopez said Big Pine Key — which measures less than 16 square miles — supports as many key deer as it can. Scientists are now relocating a few of them to neighboring keys in hopes of expanding their habitat.
Under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules, there must be two additional stable deer populations before the federal government will consider listing the deer as simply a threatened species, said Bert Byers, a spokesman for the agency.
Scientists at the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge are trying to establish those two new populations on some of the deer’s historical habitat, nearby Sugarloaf and Cudjoe keys, just south of Big Pine.
In a process called translocation, a handful of deer are placed into an 18-acre pen on their new key for about six months, then released onto the island.
The first batch of three deer was released Dec. 22 and has remained on the island, said Bill Miller, deputy project leader for the refuge.
Another deer that was translocated but broke out of the corral in September has also stayed on the key, he said. A fifth deer that was put in the pen cannot be tracked because its radio collar isn’t working.
Using the radio tracking collar, Mr. Miller said he came within 10 feet of one of the released does this past week on Sugarloaf.
“There she was, munching on mangroves like she should,” he said.
The populations that officials are trying to establish on these two keys are small. Each key can only sustain about 40 deer, Mr. Miller said. “We certainly don’t expect thousands of deer roaming about those islands. We want to take baby steps.”
The refuge hopes to move a total of 24 deer onto Sugarloaf over three years and they hope to move about the same number on Cudjoe Key, he said.
In addition to expanding the range of the deer, conservationists are trying to protect them from their No. 1 killer: automobiles.
About half of the deer mortality is due to highway deaths, and half of those deaths occur on U.S. 1, the main road through the Florida Keys, even though a 4-mile stretch of the road through Big Pine Key is a slow-speed zone — 45 mph in daylight and 35 mph at night.
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