How many deer are in Newtown, and what should the population level be?
The simple answer is that we don’t know exactly how many deer are in Newtown. Absolute deer counts are very difficult to obtain, especially for a town that’s approximately 60 square miles (size of Newtown) and is not fenced at the borders. Pro-cull advocates clamor for fewer deer based on a number of assumptions, one of which is that deer are overpopulated in Fairfield County. To support their claim, they cite deer population estimates from the CT DEP Wildlife Division. For Fairfield County (Zone 11), the DEP reports a minimum deer density of 29.4 deer per square mile. It’s important to know how the CT DEP arrives at deer counts to understand the margin of error in their deer densitiy studies. To estimate deer populations, the CT DEP Wildlife Division conducts aerial surveys every three years. The survey is conducted by an observer in a helicopter who looks for evidence of deer. The aerial survey samples about 1% of the total deer habitat in the state. From the observer’s findings, the
