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State says the deer count is down, but farmers and ranchers are still hurting

Fences are going up to keep out axis deer, but farmers and ranchers say they’re still dealing with millions in losses from crops and degraded pasturelands. DLNR courtesy photo

As a result of a fencing program by private landowners and the state, Haleakala Ranch president Scott Meidell is beginning to see the return of green sprouts of grass in some pastures denuded by axis deer

But he and many other ranchers as well as farmers say they’re continuing to lose money from damaged crops and lack of forage in unfenced lands amounting to the loss of millions of dollars.

Upcountry Farmers Market owner Neil Coshever said he’s seen an increase of deer near his Kula farm and residential areas near Naalae Road, and without deer fencing, farmers stand to lose their crops.

“There is no culling program out here,” he said. “They’re grazing nonchalantly around the hospital. They’re all over the place. It’s bad.”

Kula Country Farm co-owner Chauncy Monden said that at one point, he stopped farming on a 35-acre property because “the deer ate everything” and he had to put up a fence.

“It’s gotten to the point where if you don’t put up a fence, you shouldn’t be farming,” he said.

Meidell, whose ranch has 23,000 acres in grazing land, said a new state program offering a dollar amount for each deer killed has helped to reduce the high number of deer and also provided some money to landowners for repairs and the installation of deer fencing.

Meidell said historically, the ranch has been able to run 2,000 breeding cows, but largely due to deer and drought, the herd has been reduced by about 50%.

A new invitation for private landowners to receive $25 to $50 a deer through the Axis Deer Control program has been announced. The deadline for submission is 4 p.m. Nov. 25. For more about the program, go to bit.ly/4hDK3LU.

The state legislature has set aside $6.1 million in fiscal 2024-25 for the Maui Axis Deer program.

Officials at the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife say that based on recent heat sensor technology used in aerial flights by helicopter and drones, deer populations are significantly less than they were five years ago, and the current estimate for Maui is 34,000.

State forestry officials said the densest areas are at the base of the West Maui mountains above Kealia and Maalaea and on the slopes of Haleakala above Kihei and Wailea.

Part of the Kula district includes Waiohuli, where an axis deer hunting program began earlier this year on Hawaiian Homestead lands.

“Our beneficiaries have seen firsthand the impacts the deer have had on their communities, and this is an opportunity to get ahead of any irreversible damage,” said Homestead Commission chair Kali Watson.

Axis deer were brought to the Hawaiian Islands from India in late 1867 as a gift to King Kamehameha V and released on Maui in 1959.

While axis deer have natural predators to control their population growth in India, the deer have none in Hawai’i, allowing them to grow at a rate of 20% to 30% every year, according to a 2021 study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

While fencing has occurred to keep pigs out of state and federal conservation areas, the standard height of the fencing on Maui has been raised to 8 feet to keep deer out of sensitive watershed and endangered species areas, invasive species observers said.

Meidell said that for several years, a joint group of private and government entities have helped to develop four deer fence lines stretching 5 to 7 miles mauka-makai from Kula to Kihei’s Piilani Highway in an effort to halt the migration of herds of deer.

He said the fences are helping to control the migration but more is needed, including fencing going across the four mauka-makai fences.

Some ranchers and farmers say the fencing seems to be pushing the deer into more visible unfenced farm, ranch and residential areas where there is no culling program.

Coshever said that besides damage to crops in his Kula area, the deer herds are so thick they’ve become a traffic hazard and he’s struck a deer in two separate incidents at night in the last five months while driving 20 mph down the Kula Highway.

“Someone’s going to get killed driving along the highway,” he said.

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