Research: Fawns born in city have better chance of surviving

"The basic bottom line is the fawns in town have twice the survival rate of fawns outside of town," said Tim Carter, a biology professor at Ball State who is helping with research of fawns and adult deer in and around Bloomington.

The program allowed researchers to put the deer into either an urban or rural category and then, using statistics for the density of people in that area, determine how many of the fawns would survive.

Carter said that although there are coyotes in Bloomington, he believes there are fewer than in rural areas, and that since many fawns were located inside fenced areas, coyotes couldn't access them, keeping them safe from their number one predator.

The researchers often use apples and peanut butter to lure deer to their traps.

Ball State researchers are now setting out more bait piles in an effort to trap and collar more adult deer both inside the Bloomington city limits and in the country.

Four methods are used to catch the deer: clover traps, which are pens that the deer enter to eat; drop nets that are suspended over the ground and drop on the animal; suspended net guns that hang from a tree with a bait pile underneath and shoot a net over deer when they are feeding; and dart projectors that a person in a tree-stand shoot into the deer that they then track.

Carter said the tranquilizer is safe for the animals and that researchers monitor the deers' heart rate, respiration and temperature while they are under.

Once the tranquilizer wears off, the deer are up and moving in five to seven minutes, he said.

Since the deer are then tracked, the researchers are able to monitor them to make sure they are OK.