The Deer Hunter – When Bambi is a Pest

It was dawn on a cold, clear winter’s day and Frank Bauerlein was tracking deer at a Lippy Brothers’ farm in Carroll County. Spotting one of the animals that had been eating vegetables in one of the company’s many farms, he quietly put it in the crosshairs of the scope on his custom-made sniper’s rifle. In an instant his aim was true.

When Bauerlein, 60, a retired fire department paramedic and a Vietnam veteran (he was not a military sniper), is not running tractors or trucks for Lippy Brothers of Hampstead – one of the largest agricultural operations in Maryland – he and his supervisor, Brad Rill, are the company’s primary sharpshooters for its deer management program. Bauerlein – who has hunted all his life – and another sharpshooter, Wes Moser, are responsible for achieving an important component in the company’s integrated pest management program: Deer control.

“From my first day here,” said Bauerlein, who has been with Lippy Brothers for 10 years, “we knew we had a [deer] problem. Up until seven years ago, we just tried to do it on a Ôif you get a chance, when you get a chance’ basis. Then we drew a line in the sand. Lippy Brothers decided to put a program in place to address the deer damage.” “Over the last 10 years,” said Baulerlein’s employer, Ed Lippy, “we have had to change an awful lot of our farming practices to eliminate as much deer damage as we can. We’ve done about everything we know to do in a productive, cultural way to minimize deer damage.”

Such practices include farming away from multi-crop contour strips to one-crop fields, rotating crops, and using repellent sprays.

“Even though we do the best we can in production management,” said Lippy, “we still have tremendous losses. In the last five years, we lost in the neighborhood of $275,000 to $300,000 a year due to deer damage. So the real purpose here is to reduce the loss so we can continue to farm those farms.

“With that kind of loss over the last five years, there are areas that we just can’t farm anymore. We’ve given up 500 acres of crop land that we just can’t farm. We’ve converted certain areas from grain crops to hay, because [the deer] eat the hay, which is not a high-dollar volume crop. So they don’t hurt us as bad on the hay. It’s a real management problem, and I don’t think there are many farmers that don’t have substantial deer damage.”

Until last year, the common groundhog was the largest wildlife destroyer of grain crops. But according to 2008-2009 U.S. Department of Agriculture Statistics for the State of Maryland, 80 percent of overall grain crop damage is done by deer.

But just because Lippy Brothers want to reduce deer damage doesn’t mean they want to kill all the deer.
“There are deer everywhere,” said Lippy. “We’re just trying to reduce the hot spots and stabilize the population.”

“We have a dedicated weed control program in which we [set aside] man-hours and material,” said Bauerlein. “We have a similarly dedicated insect control program. We decided that we would address the deer situation just like we address insects and weeds. At that point, we decided that it had to be done now.”

With the deer control program firmly in place, Lippy Brothers lose only 15 to 20 percent of their crops on farms near such refuges as state parks and golf courses. Other farms lose as much as 40 percent of their crops.

Armed with rifles that are custom built on Remington 700 actions with Broughton precision match barrels, Bauerlein and the other sharpshooters’ weapon systems are patterned after those used by U.S. Marine Corps’ snipers and U.S. Atomic Energy Commission security personnel. That means that they do not buy their weapons at Walmart. The rifles and the ammunition – with each round custom loaded – are designed to stop whatever is in their scopes’ crosshairs.

The fact that the Lippy Brothers’ sharpshooters control deer year around has put off some hunters who would gladly help with the program. But for safety reasons, they are not permitted.

“Because some of our fields are near residential areas,” said Bauerlein, “it’s Lippy Brothers’ position that we can’t have people squeezing a trigger that won’t hit a target. To get certified, our people have to hit a two-inch target and shoot 90 percent. It’s not just grab a gun and go shoot. It doesn’t work that way.

“Also, the hunting community believes we’re trying to kill all the deer, which we are not. Lippy Brothers farm about 8,000 acres of land or 10,000 acres of crop. Most of that land is leased property. Some hunters want permission to hunt on that land, but we can’t give it to them because we don’t own the land. The law says the landowner has to give them permission. It’s not that Lippy Brothers doesn’t want them on the property. If they get permission from the landowner, I guarantee you that Lippy Brothers will be happy for them. In fact , there are some hunters who hunt the property we own.”

Lippy Brothers’ deer control program has given hunters another benefit.

“It’s proven through quality deer management practices that if you control the doe, you’ll have bigger and better buck,” said Bauerlein. “When the hunter gets on that tree stand, he wants a buck. We’re not interested in the buck, we want the doe. [Per their license, Lippy Brothers can only shoot does and bucks without antlers.] We’re not hurting the hunter, because he’s going to have a bigger and better buck. So, actually the program is a win-win for the farmer and the hunter. The fewer does there are to breed, the more buck will have to run and find does, and there’s a greater chance that hunters will see buck run by their tree stand.”

What happens to the fallen deer? If it is determined unfit for human consumption by the Department of Natural Resources, it is buried. But if the deer is fit for human food ( 90 percent of them are) it is offered to charities like the Harvest for the Hungry and Christian Farmers Outreach, among others.

According to Bauerlein, “Lippy Brothers is one of the few farming operations in the state of Maryland to have a dedicated deer control program with budgeted equipment and man-hours. With that said, I personally do not know of any other farmer that has assigned a priority to deer control. Lippy Brothers is way ahead of the curve on that one.”

“The Agricultural School at the University of Maryland said that Maryland farmers are going to have to accept the fact that deer control is going to be part of the cost of doing business,” said Bauerlein. “Deer damage comes right out of the bottom line.”