At the end of the month, Arlington residents will be asked to spend a half hour counting the deer in their community.
Arlington’s Department of Parks and Recreation is organizing its first “Deer Day” on Tuesday, Jan. 28 from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. Parks officials are attempting to take “a snapshot census of the deer population in Arlington.”
Arlington Natural Resources Manager Alonso Abugattas said if residents can “go to the nearest park” or just spend a half hour looking through their backyard and count the number of deer they observe, it will help Parks and Recreation officials estimate the number of deer in the county.
The deer census is conducted in line with the county’s Natural Resource Management Plan, according to Abugattas. Deer is just one of the species Parks and Recreation will attempt to inventory.
“It’s important to know what we have,” Abugattas told ARLnow.com in an email. “It’s a snap shot in time and will cover as many of our parks as possible, targeting some particularly sensitive natural areas in particular. These one-day snap shots in time will hopefully ensure we don’t count the same animals twice since we will be at multiple parks at the same time. We may repeat this exercise several times if we see that there is good participation and results.”
Abugattas said January is the best time for the exercise since there is less leaf cover and it gets darker earlier, so volunteers don’t have to be out as late. Abugattas said he will use “multiple methods over a long period of time” to try to get the most accurate county possible.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons