The Deer Problem: Ballwin, Ellisville Continue Joint Effort to Regulate Hunting

The idea was spawned in January, started taking root in April and in August, has at last started to sprout results: Ballwin and Ellisville city officials are considering how they may jointly regulate deer populations and hunting in their city limits.

The issue leaped to the fore in January when a Ballwin resident was injured in the parking lot of an Ellisville auto shop when one of two deer rammed into her,  injuries and hospitalization.

Last week, officials from both cities met in a . The cities first started talking about just such a meeting in April.

"The two cities are trying to work together on this," Ballwin Mayor Tim Pogue told Patch. He presented a brief outline of the Aug. 15 work session to colleagues at Monday's Ballwin board of aldermen meeting.

Pogue said ideally, they would come up with something before bow-hunting season for deer starts Sept. 15 (it runs through Jan. 15), but he thought it unlikely that could happen.

"I do not foresee any concerns," Pogue said later in an email to Patch. "It will just be a matter of recommending minimum lot sizes and distances from property lines and buildings (where hunting can occur) that both councils are comfortable with."

He said a local ordinance would likely be modeled after those in Creve Coeur and Clarkson Valley, where archery deer hunting is allowed on properties of one acre or larger from elevated stands.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that two deer hunts are planned already in Ellisville at the Roger Klamberg Woods Conservation Area. Those hunts would be managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation. The hunts are planned for parts of the first full weeks of November and December. The archery hunts are aimed at controlling the deer population.

Erin Shank, urban wildlife biologist with MDC, estimated that Ellisville's deer population could be as dense as 60 per square mile. She said the risk of deer vs. auto collisions grows when the deer population gets above 20 or 30 per square mile.