2025-2026 Deer Management Program Final Report
Executive Summary
Oxford is currently facing a deer overpopulation issue, which leads to numerous problems for humans and the local environment, including property damage, deer-vehicle collisions, and reduced biodiversity due to overbrowsing of native vegetation.
To address this issue, the City of Oxford must reduce the deer population in our community to an ecologically sustainable level.
Oxford’s Deer Management Program (DMP) has been in place since 2009, but changes are needed, as deer populations have continued to exceed sustainable levels. In 2025, the City of Oxford worked with a Miami University Senior Capstone class to review effective deer management strategies in other communities. The city is implementing the group’s recommendations by changing components of the DMP and by utilizing professional population control services. Professional population control services involve contracting trained, professional, biologist, markspeople to remove deer using firearms. The program will occur in early January and run for approximately 5 days. The City has contracted with White Buffalo for population control. White Buffalo is a nationally recognized leader in humane and professional urban deer population control.
Residents can support Oxford’s Deer Management in multiple ways:
- Do not feed wildlife. Feeding wildlife allows populations to grow beyond ecologically sustainable levels due to non-native food sources.
- Volunteer your land. The city is no longer accepting volunteer properties for the 2025-2026 Season. Thank you to those who volunteered.
- Participate in the Bow Hunting Program. Read the details & apply here.
Through effective deer management, Oxford aims to:
- Ensure an ecologically sustainable deer population.
- Increase road safety and reduce property damage by reducing deer-human interactions.
- Ensure natural biodiversity and habitat integrity
- Engage and inform community members on the City’s Deer Management Program.
Overpopulation of deer leads to numerous problems for the local environment and humans, including property damage, increased deer-vehicle collisions, and the loss of forest regeneration and species diversity.
White-tailed deer are a keystone species, meaning anything they do affects all other organisms in their ecosystem. They are browsers, meaning they eat all forms of plant material, including seedlings, leaves, buds, flowers, fruit, bark, young trees, and branches. Without the presence of keystone predators, such as mountain lions, wolves, and black bears, the unchecked overpopulation of deer poses a threat to the natural environment.
Excessive deer browsing severely limits a forest's ability to regenerate. When large trees die, smaller trees usually take their place in the canopy, but due to deer browsing of saplings, there are fewer young trees to fill in the canopy. Due to selective browsing, elevated deer populations can damage or eliminate plant species, such as wildflowers and spring ephemeral flowers. Deer overpopulation has the potential to eliminate all vegetation under six feet if left unchecked. Deer have also threatened the populations of ground-nesting birds, such as the wood thrush, by eating and trampling their eggs and young. All of these factors negatively impact forest diversity and function, harming the local ecosystem.
Deer overpopulation also poses problems for residents of Oxford. From increased deer-vehicle collisions to deer browsing on local gardens and crops, deer interfere with human activities destructively, and they pose an increased risk of tick-borne pathogens, such as Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis, which can be transmitted to humans through deer ticks. Deer themselves can suffer from starvation and diseases such as chronic wasting disease when in an area with insufficient resources for the population size. While Ohio’s Chronic Waste Disease surveillance area is not in Butler County, being proactive is the best way to prevent this disease from spreading here.
A healthy and stable deer population that the local ecosystem can support without causing undue stress to plant and tree species is approximately 10–15 deer per square mile. Oxford is about 7.5 square miles, so the appropriate number of deer that Oxford can sustain is 75-113 deer.
- Do not feed wildlife. Feeding wildlife allows populations to grow beyond ecologically sustainable levels due to non-native food sources.
- Volunteer your land. Volunteer your land to be used for Oxford’s Bow Hunting Program and/or professional population control services.
3.Participate in the Bow Hunting Program.
b. Learn more at: DMP Rules & Participant Application
Each year, different land tracts within the city are inspected and approved for participation in the program. All approved tracts of land are isolated and either owned by the city or on private land of at least three acres. Here is a map of approved tracts for the 2025 program:
Map Coming Soon!
The DMP occurs during archery hunting season in Ohio, and is divided up into three sessions:
| 1st Session | Saturday, September 27, 2025 - Saturday, November 8th, 2025 |
| 2nd Session | Sunday, November 9th 2025 – Monday, December 8th 2025 |
| 3rd Session | Friday, January 16th, 2026 – Sunday, February 1st, 2026 |
Please note the date changes for Sessions 2 and 3. This was necessary to accommodate the professional population control services.
Non-lethal methods to control deer overpopulation do exist and have been tried by other municipalities. However, they are not legally or economically viable for the City of Oxford at this time.
Fertility control and sterilization shots are illegal in Ohio without the permission of the Chief of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, and permits are only issued for formal research studies.
Additionally, there is scientific evidence demonstrating that fertility control is not an effective management option for controlling large free-ranging white tailed deer populations. Since deer population migrate from city to city, sterilization methods are only recommended for cities that are isolated, with little migration. Surgical sterilization can range from $1,000 to $3,000 per deer, and a 10-year study sterilizing 90% of the deer population at Cornell University showed almost no population impacts or ecological improvements (Blossey et al.).
Trapping and relocating deer is illegal in Ohio under rules issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 1531, due to the potential spread of ticks and Chronic Wasting Disease. Deer experience high levels of stress from being trapped, and a high percentage of deer do not survive the relocation and release into a new area. The effectiveness of live capture can depend on factors such as the terrain, cost, and safety concerns; however, it is generally considered inefficient and expensive. Due to the widespread problem of deer overpopulation, it can also be difficult to find places that are willing to accept additional deer.
Oxford issued a “no feeding” ordinance in 2009, which prohibits citizens from feeding deer and other wildlife recreationally. This would include placing food such as nuts, grains, and fruit on or near the ground to encourage deer feeding and visitation to the property. However, this ordinance is extremely difficult to enforce, relying on citizen complaints of neighbors feeding the deer. Other Ohio communities with this ordinance have reported little to no enforcement activities and no difference in the deer population.
Blossey, Bernd, et al. “Red Oak Seedlings as Indicators of Deer Browse Pressure: Gauging the Outcome of Different White‐Tailed Deer Management Approaches.” Ecology and Evolution, vol. 9, no. 23, 8 Nov. 2019, pp. 13085–13103, https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5729. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021.
Humans have contributed to the conditions that lead to deer overpopulation, including the extermination of predators and landscape changes that have increased the amount of edge habitat and food supply. To protect native plants and animals, we must actively manage these human-influenced parcels. Humans have been key predators of deer for thousands of years, and they play a crucial role in the ecological equation that governs these properties. A hands-off approach would allow deer to continue threatening and possibly exterminating many species of native plants.
The ongoing, long-term research by Miami faculty and students on sapling regeneration and deer density will continue to help determine the impact of the DMP. This information will be publicly available, along with our annual update reports on the results of the program.
The City of Oxford is enhancing its Deer Management Program this season by contracting with White Buffalo Inc., a nationally recognized leader in humane and professional urban deer population control. This November, White Buffalo will conduct a population survey, which is required in order for the City to apply for a special permit from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Alongside our existing bow hunting program, this survey will help determine whether we need to request a permit to remove approximately 50 to 100 deer, with the exact number based on survey results.
White Buffalo specializes in safe, effective, and humane methods designed to reduce deer populations without allowing the herd to become “educated” to avoid management efforts. White Buffalo will operate on a combination of private and City property. All private property participation is voluntary, and selected homeowners will be contacted separately.
- The Deer Management Program implementation: 2009
- Bow Hunting Program: September to February Annually
- Oxford, Ohio Deer Management Policy Report by Miami University Senior Capstone: 2025
- Update to the Bow Hunting Program: September 2025
- Council Budget approval: November 2025
- Survey of the current deer population: November 2025
- Application for the ODNR Population Control Permit: December 2025
- Professional population control service: January 2026.
- 2026-2027: Evaluate the success of the changes to the bow hunting program and professional population control measures. Adjust or repeat population control measures as needed.
The Bow Hunting Program allows local participants to hunt white-tailed deer. Participants are subject to ODNR bag limits and may donate unwanted venison to the Community Meal Center.
The bow hunting program prioritizes public safety in its rules and regulations. This includes:
- Program participants are only allowed to use bows authorized by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)
- Participants are required to be in a tree stand for more visibility and a safer angle
- Participants are required to pass the ODNR Hunter Safety Training Course
- Participants are required to wear hunter orange at all times
- The city-owned and private properties that participate in the DMP must have orange signs posted alerting the public of hunting in the area
- Participants are required to inform the City Manager or designee when they will be hunting on assigned land
For more information, visit: DMP Rules & Participant Application
Deer harvested by White Buffalo during the professional population management effort will be processed by a licensed facility. The resulting venison will then be donated to a local food bank to help provide food to individuals and families in need.
Participating hunters in the local Oxford Bow-Hunting Program are encouraged to donate a deer to the Community Meal Center in Hamilton, Ohio, and may be reimbursed for the cost of the deer permit for said donated deer. Ultimately, the deer harvested through the local bow hunting program is up to the hunter's discretion.