Abundance and distribution of white-tailed deer on First State National Historical Park and surrounding lands

We estimated both abundance and distribution of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) on the Brandywine Valley unit of First State National Historical Park (FRST) and the Brandywine Creek State Park (BCSP) during 2020 and 2021 with two widely used field methods — a road-based count and a network of camera traps. We conducted 24 road-based counts, covering 260 km of roadway, and deployed up to 16 camera traps, processing over 82,000 images representing over 5,000 independent observations.

In both years, we identified bucks based on their body and antler characteristics, tracking their movements between baited camera trap locations. We tested seven estimators commonly reported in the literature, comparing the relative merits for managers of small, protected natural areas like FRST.

Deer densities estimated from conventional road-based distance sampling were approximately 10 deer/km² lower than densities estimated from camera-trapping surveys. We attribute the bias in roadbased distance sampling to the difficulty of recording the precise effort expended to obtain the counts. Modifying the distance sampling method addressed many of the issues associated with the conventional approach. Despite little substantive differences in land cover types between the two methods, a clear spatial segregation of male and female deer at camera trap locations could bias roadbased counts if the sexes are not encountered in proportion to their abundances. There was a distinct gradient in deer distribution across the study area, with higher proportions of deer recorded in camera traps at FRST than BCSP, which harvests 20–60 deer annually during a regulated, hunting season.

The most reliable (i.e., low bias, acceptable precision) methods, Spatial Capture Recapture (SCR) and Density Surface Modeling (DSM), produced deer densities of approximately 50 deer/km² in each year — a number which is consistent with previous estimates for New Castle County, Delaware, and our experience in similar, unhunted natural areas. Across both FRST and BCSP, these densities translated into area-wide (~1000 ha) population sizes between 650–1000 deer, with about one-half to two-thirds comprising the FRST population.

Density surface modeling of mapped locations of deer detected during surveys, combined with camera-trapping and a time-to-event data analysis might be the only practical means of reliably assessing white-tailed deer abundance in small (<2000 ha), protected natural areas like FRST. Most other approaches are either too time-consuming, require identification and tracking of individual deer, the use of bait, or require intervention by a subject-area expert.