Sierra Club - Miami Group

Florida Key Deer (USFWS photo by John Oberheu)

Florida's Wildlife Needs You

If you are a wild animal living on a planet with human beings who are changing your living area, your home, your habitat, there is very little you can do to protect yourself. But as a human being there is a lot you can do to make sure our animal neighbors survive in health and safety.

In our state, 39 resident forms of wildlife are listed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as either endangered or threatened. This means that some day, there could be none of them left at all.

Here is one of South Florida's
endangered mammals.
The Florida Key Deer.

Legal Status: Endangered - Approximately 400 remaining and population is declining.
Distribution - Lower Keys - Mainly Big Pine Key and 16 smaller keys in the area.
Habitat - Habitat: Pine and Hardwoods with year-round fresh water.
Threats - Habitat destruction (building homes), road kills, poaching although protected and artificial feeding (junk food by people)
Family - Key Deer are the smallest race of North American White-tailed Deer, and the only deer found in the Florida Keys.

Land set aside as a Key Deer refuge in l954 was not adequate and so many of the deer lived outside the refuge. Since then, Congress has authorized the acquisition of more land to be included in the refuge. But, the deer continue to wander outside the refuge. In the past people fed them. Now it is against the law.

Do Not Feed the Deer.

Never feed wild deer your food for the following reasons:

1. Hand fed deer lose their fear of humans and become easy prey for poachers.

2. Public feeding attracts deer to roads and highways where they are killed by passing cars.

3. When attracted to areas of high human concentration, deer are exposed to man-related accidents such as wire entanglements, debris, accidental drowning in canals when frightened and attacks by dogs.

4. Deer tend to concentrate in large numbers around a public feeding area and are more susceptible to contagious diseases and injury due to fighting.

How One School Boy Helped Save the Deer.

Key Deer have never been plentiful but by the early l940's there were less than 50 left due to hunting. It was then that Glen Allen, an eleven -year-old Miamian, wrote to President Truman in l947 about the concern he had for the survival of the Key Deer. Later he wrote to President Eisenhower. Additionally he enlisted his classmates and area Boy Scouts to write to their Congressmen. From this initial concern in l947 grew a movement to save the deer.

To learn more about the deer and what you can do to save them write or call the Key Deer Refuge Manager, P. O. Box 510, Big Pine Key, FL 33043, Phone 305-872-2239.

The following links will give you pictures and more information:

Ray I. Doan's Photo Collection Site (click Wildlife Index for Florida Animals, then Key Deer (picture))

Island Fun, Key West Tourism Page (one page of information)

Florida Game and Fresh water Fish Commission Coloring Book, Deer Page Picture to color.