They chew up shrubbery and destroy forest habitats. They spread Lyme disease and leap unexpectedly into traffic, with dire consequences.

Docile and undeniably cute as they are, deer have spread throughout suburbia, leaving many towns grappling with how to reduce their numbers.

“Over 30 years ago, if we picked up a deer a year, it was amazing,” said Carol Tyler, owner of Paramus-based Tyco Animal Control, which contracts with municipalities to collect road kill, among other animal-control services. “Now, if we go a day without picking a deer up, it would be amazing.”

If you drive in New Jersey, your chances of hitting a large animal are 1 in 232. That animal will probably be a deer, and your odds of avoiding one are not improving, according to State Farm Insurance, which ranks deer-vehicle collisions by state.

Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes said he recently spotted 12 deer and six wild turkeys on his block.

"It was like that 'Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom' show from the 1970s," he said.

Englewood is among the North Jersey municipalities seeking a way to thin the herds, along with River Vale, which could follow Saddle River in the extraordinary measure of allowing a yard-to-yard hunt.

More collisions, roadside carcasses and Lyme diagnoses (New Jersey's 3,629 cases in 2017 were second only to Pennsylvania's) are signs that deer problems are not going away in the Garden State, particularly in North Jersey, where deer and humans keep close company.

River Vale has put up deer-crossing signs, but the deer have quadrupled in the past five to seven years, Business Administrator Gennaro Rotella said.

“We need to make a decision quickly if we want to get in a program for next fall,” River Vale Mayor Glen Jasionowski said.

Is hunting the answer?

In other parts of the state, established hunting programs have controlled the deer population. The numbers dropped on hunting lands from 205,000 in 1985 to 145,000 in 2018, according to the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife.

“Hunters are doing their job,” due in no small part to New Jersey’s liberal deer hunting regulations, including unlimited bagging of antler-less deer, said Carole Stanko, chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Wildlife Management.

The state has one of the nation’s longest deer hunting seasons, from mid-September to mid-February, and a licensed hunter can hunt deer virtually anywhere with a public or private property owner’s permission, unless the land has anti-hunting restrictions, Stanko said.

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The challenge is managing the deer where traditional hunting doesn’t exist, Stanko said.

For those places, the Division of Fish & Wildlife offers a Community-Based Management Permit. The permit allows exceptions to hunting regulations, such as extending the hunting season, shooting by an authorized agent, capture and removal of deer, or fertility control. Counties, municipalities and airports can apply, but they need to take that step.

“The tools are in place. It’s the access that’s needed,” Stanko said.

Only Essex County, Bernards Township, Princeton, and Fort Dix and Lakehurst, jointly, have the community-based permits. Not everyone is comfortable with deer hunts close to residences, and many outright oppose lethal options.

Angi Metler, executive director of the Animal Protection League, backs other methods. She favors banning residents from feeding deer and managing road lighting, reflectors and signs to deter collisions.

“It’s a complicated issue, and we’ve studied this for decades,” Metler said of deer management. “New Jersey is behind the curve on this, big time.”

Essex County is one of the few testing out a collision prevention program. Vehicle headlights, shining on reflectors, set off high-pitched noises to scare deer off the road.

What deer control works best?

Wildlife agencies recognize regulated hunting as the most effective, practical and flexible solution, according to a report by the Wildlife Society, a Maryland-based management and conservation group.

Stanko, who recently advised River Vale and Englewood on options, contributed to the latest society report update in 2009. She also contends that regulated hunting is the least expensive for a county or municipality, as hunters foot most of the bill.

With ample, wooded backyards, Saddle River recently started what Borough Administrator Jerry Giamis calls a controlled hunt.

The borough contracted with United Bowhunters of New Jersey to hunt on municipal and private properties, with the landowners' permission, during New Jersey’s deer season, from Oct. 1, 2018, to Feb. 16.

Participants must have a New Jersey archery license, and their names, contact information and vehicle descriptions are provided to the police chief. United Bowhunters had to prove $5 million in liability coverage.

More than 200 residents volunteered their land for the program, followed by a borough review of each property’s suitability to a bow hunt, Giamis said.

For what the hunters don’t keep, the borough will pay up to $100 per deer to butcher and donate the carcass to Hunters Helping the Hungry, for up to 15 percent of the harvest.

So far, more than 100 deer have been killed. Since Saddle River has no overall deer population figures, it's unclear what effect this will have.

However, a peek at the first three months of the hunt shows deer were involved in 9.67 percent of the 257 Saddle River crashes from October to December 2018. By comparison, deer contributed to 12.82 and 14.51 percent of crashes during the same periods in 2016 and 2017.

In more crowded towns, shotgun or rifle sharpshooting is safer, but costly, according to the Wildlife Society report. Costs can range from $200 to $450 per deer killed.

Marksmen

In Essex County, the Parks and Sheriff’s departments qualify the skills of volunteer licensed hunters, who station themselves in stands at least 20 feet above ground and shoot down at the deer.

Since 2008, the community-based program has killed 2,370 deer, including 888 unborn, from the county's reservations.

Essex County, which started this year's hunts on Jan. 15, monitors its progress with searchlight counts after each winter. Last May, the searches estimated 61 deer per square mile at South Mountain and 263 per square mile at Hilltop, Essex County spokesman Anthony Puglisi said.

“In an impaired ecosystem, such as in South Mountain and Hilltop reservations, density must be reduced to five deer per square mile,” he said. “The goal in the 2019 program is to remove 132 deer from South Mountain and 107 from Hilltop.”

Essex County’s management program includes planting native vegetation within 47 deer-proof enclosures at the reservations. Without deer, other wildlife can survive on those plants.

What about non-lethal solutions?

In River Vale, Saddle River and elsewhere, the prospect of shooting deer has drawn passionate opposition and calls for other solutions.

Before Saddle River initiated its bow hunt, Stanko rejected the borough’s community-based permit proposal to capture and spay, citing “the low probability of success.” In a 2014 study, Cornell University concluded that surgical sterilization would achieve only small deer reductions.

“Those communities that started sterilization only have subsequently either embraced lethal deer management or allowed deer populations to persist at undesirable levels,” the Cornell authors wrote.

The "trap-and-transfer” method takes deer to a place that can accommodate more of them. New sites for deer may be scarce; handling and moving the deer could be cumbersome; and it’s expensive, from $400 to $1,200 per deer, according to the Wildlife Society report.

And it's not necessarily kind: Deer can be injured while being trapped or moved, and survival rates for relocated deer are frequently low.

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Both reports concluded that injecting deer with an immuno-contraceptive vaccine, either by dart or by hand, was experimental.

Fencing, repellents and dogs can help deter deer, particularly from the degradation of native plants, but these efforts have limitations, the Wildlife Society said.

Flat Rock Brook Nature Center in Englewood put up 8-foot fencing to keep deer from destroying the vegetation, which supports other wildlife. The barrier has worked, says Executive Director Stephen Wiessner. but some neighbors complain it only sends deer elsewhere, he said.

Little Falls Mayor James Damiano, meanwhile, touts his town's deer feeding ban

"People aren't feeding them as much. There's not as much of a reason for them to hang around," he said.

Email: proctor@northjersey.com