After about a decade of gradual decline in deer-vehicle collisions in East Lansing, the director of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Department says 2025 saw a spike in collisions and the city is looking into long-term solutions to manage the deer population.
For the last six years the city has called in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, to perform annual deer culls, where sharpshooters kill deer in city parks at night for typically about four nights. Deer culling has been an important component of the city’s efforts to facilitate the best interactions between human residents and wildlife residents, Parks, Recreation and Arts Director Justin Drwencke said, but other wildlife management strategies could be coming down the pipeline.
Deer-involved vehicle collisions in Michigan have increased in the last decade, according to Michigan Traffic Crash Facts annual crash data, going from about 47,000 in 2015, to more than 58,000 in 2024. In Ingham County, deer-car collisions dropped from 1,087 crashes in 2015, amongst the highest for counties in the state, down to 887 crashes in 2024, a more average number for Michigan counties.
In 2020, in response to residents’ concerns over the growing deer population causing safety hazards on roadways, destroying residential area landscapes and the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease, city leaders authorized deer culling…