Florida's Key deer population is at risk from rising sea levels causing their resources to shrink, experts say.
What Are Key Deer?
Key deer are the smallest subspecies of the white-tailed deer. The biggest bucks are less than 3 feet tall at the shoulder and weigh about 75 pounds.
This subspecies of deer is only found in piney and marshy wetlands bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico on the Florida Keys.
Key deer have been endangered for nearly 60 years after the population dropped to around 50 from hunting and poaching. Their numbers have since grown tremendously, peaking at roughly 1,000 deer in the mid-2010s, but then a deadly parasite and Hurricane Irma caused the population to take a big hit. There are currently roughly 800 deer on the Florida Keys.
For years, the biggest threat to Key Deer was being hit by cars along U.S. Highway 1 and local roads. Now, the biggest long-term risk for this subspecies is the rising waters surrounding the Florida Keys, which alter the landscape of their habitat.
How Is Climate Change Affecting the Deer?
By 2100, seas will rise 1.5 feet to 7 feet in parts of the Florida Key, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The threat of sea rise is greatest to low-lying islands like Big Pine Key, where the majority of Key deer live.
"They were always vulnerable," Chris Bergh, the South Florida program manager for the Nature Conservancy, who oversees sea level rise projects and lives in Big Pine Key, told The Associated Press (AP). "They're much more vulnerable now. And with the sea level rising and their habitat shrinking, they're becoming even more so."
Rising sea levels will continue to shrink freshwater and food sources for Key deer.
"So as the sea rises, that shrinks the amount of available freshwater, the amount of available, palatable vegetation, the places for bearing their young," Bergh said. "It puts them increasingly in conflict with people who are also occupying those higher grounds."
Key deer on Big Pine Key move through the mostly rural neighborhoods where they will graze peoples' gardens.
"They roam, they spend their day grazing," Katy Hosokawa, a park ranger at the National Key Deer Refuge, told the AP. "We don't have a really nutritionally dense soil, so they need to eat a lot of food to get what they need. But trust me, they're very good at it. If it's soft and tender, they will try to eat it."
Climate change also strengthens hurricanes, which are already prevalent in Florida. Storm surges can damage deer habitat and freshwater supplies.
What Will Happen to the Deer?
Just six inches of sea rise, which is expected by 2030, would mean the loss of 16 percent of the freshwater holes on Big Pine Key, Nova Silvy, professor emeritus with Texas A&M University who has studied Key deer since 1968 and has lived on Big Pine Key for several years, told the AP.
Sea rise is expected to overtake roughly 84 percent of the 1,988 remaining acres of the preferred habitat on Big Pine Key by 2050, Silvey said, adding that "the deer will already be gone" by then.
Bergh said he'd like to try to keep the deer viable on Big Pine Key, but, zoos can be an option.
"And at some point, if that's no longer possible, I personally think zoos are the most responsible alternative," he said. "But that's a terrible alternative. Who wants that for a wild animal?"
Scientists have been allowed in rare instances to relocate endangered species threatened by climate change if all else fails.
"The problem is if you take them any other place with deer, they're going to interbreed and then you've lost the Key deer," Silvy said.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
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