BEATRICE - Homestead National Historical Park is once again monitoring their White-tailed Deer population.

On Saturday, the park held its first deer population count since 2016 in honor of public lands day. The parks resource management specialist is Jesse Bolli and he led the count.

“It’s a good opportunity to get an idea of what the deer population is doing to see how it’s changing over time,” Bolli said.

The count is important because it impacts decisions made by park staff as to how to manage the habitats within the park.

“If we’re going to be replanting trees, and we know the deer population is super high, we’re going to have to do some stuff to mitigate having a lot of deer around,” Bolli said.

The count consisted of three stationery observers, a handful of volunteer counters, and park staff. The group divided up, making their way through the prairie tall grass and woodlands, making noise to attempt to flush out deer for the count. After about two and a half hours of work, the group totaled 34 deer, beating the previous record of 25.

“The deer population, historically, was about 20-30 deer per square mile,” Bolli said. “Today, we got 34 deer on less than a half-section, so the population is rather high.”

Of those 34 deer, 32 were doe and just a pair were bucks. Bolli explained why this may be.

“The hunting pressure,” Bolli said. “It’s southeast Nebraska. There’s a lot of deer hunting that goes on and a lot of the hunters target the bucks. It could also be that the bucks were just more secretive.”

A factor in the nine-deer increase from this count to last is the fact that harvest season is in its prime.

“The neighbor to the south was harvesting corn while we were out there counting,” Bolli said. “The field to the north was harvested yesterday, and the one to the west has been harvested as well, so deer are moving.”

Bolli also cautions the public for deer and vehicle encounters as a result of the high count.

“It’s a good reminder that during the harvest time, deer are moving and we have to be cautious and mindful of them.”