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Florida Key Deer
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Florida Key Deer
Wildlife & Nature
Volume One
Issue Five
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The Enchanting Toy Deer of the Florida Keys
text by Linda Lee Rathbun
photos by Steven David Miller
Shyly, a doe steps out of the slash pine and palm forest into the flaxen glow of the late afternoon sunlight. Her inky eyes are fringed with long lashes, and her black nose glistens with moisture. Her long, slim legs are booted in ebony hooves. Behind her are a few generations of daughters, and two yearlings from last year’s births. In a cluster they surge forward, their ears twitching as they examine the road, preparing to cross to the grassy clearing on the other side. Once safely over, the family group breaks up, each one searching for appetizing leaves to feed on, but each aware of the other, the distance between them never too great.
These sweet, diminutive creatures look like animated stuffed toys, something Disney would create to delight small children visiting the Magic Kingdom. The Key Deer are real though, a two-foot high sub-species of the Virginia white-tailed deer. Of the sixteen sub-species of white tails, this is the tiniest, a large Key Deer buck will weigh 80 pounds at most while a northern white tail buck can weigh 400 pounds. Distinctive, and endangered, they are found nowhere else but in the lower islands of the Florida Keys.
The lady of this species is about twenty-two inches high at the shoulder, she weighs from 45 to 65 pounds, and her fur is tinted in gray through rust. Her mainland relatives will be ready to reproduce at the age of one; she will wait until she is three. While other deer will often have twins and even triplets, she rarely has more than one fawn. In spring, after a 204-day gestation period, she gives birth to an adorable, Lilliputian baby weighing two to four pounds. This low birth rate is nature's way of ensuring that the deer do not overpopulate their fragile island homes. Mainland deer reproduce more abundantly because predators ensure fewer offspring will survive.
The Key Deer doe is a devoted mother. One year, when a severe drought grasped the islands, a female gave birth on Porpoise Key where no fresh water was available. Daily, the mother would leave her fawn hidden safely in the vegetation, and she would swim the kilometer to Big Pine Key where she replenished her milk supply by feeding, and drinking fresh water. Then she would return to her fawn, making the round trip every 24 hours until the drought broke and she was able to stay on Porpoise Key full time with her baby.
More recently, a two-month-old fawn was hit by a car and taken to the National Key Deer Refuge to recover. After five days in care, a doe came to the pen holding the fawn, and the two animals started calling to each other. The ranger felt sure this was a mother-child reunion, and when he released the fawn, the mother gave out a loud cry when she identified its scent. Deer bonding occurs through smell, and it is thought deer recognize their offspring throughout their lifetime. What a touching creature this little toy is.
A natural grouping of Key Deer is a matriarch of females, their lives only touched by adult males during the autumn rutting season. The bucks are more aggressive than their mainland relatives, making them the bantamweights of the deer kingdom. They are a few inches taller than the does and weigh between 55 and 80 pounds, one fifth the size of some of the mainland species. Bucks are in their prime in August when their antlers are full and they have lost the soft velvet covering; by March they will have lost their antlers entirely, and by June velvet-covered stubs appear for the next breeding season. Their life span is only eight years to the females’ seventeen years. Perhaps the stress of pursuing the ladies and fighting with other males for the privilege of mating shortens their lives.
Though more male fawns are born than females, in the end there are two does for every buck. It seems rather sad that the males do not get to enjoy a more social life, but then, that is not unusual in the animal kingdom. Their lives are solitary, though they sometimes feed and bed with other males outside the mating season. Any human male who has ever been turned down for not having the right assets to attract a lady will sympathize with the pressure of being a Key Deer buck. Only those with the largest rack of antlers get the girls, and every year, they have to fight for females all over again.
How did these deer evolve into miniatures of their mainland relatives? Once, when the sea level was low and the Florida Keys was a solid bridge of land, the larger Virginia whitetails freely roamed this far south. Then, sometime between four and ten thousand years ago, the Wisconsin Glacier melted, and as the water rose and the land bridge dissolved into a string of coral keys, a group of deer was isolated.
Over the next several thousand years the deer adapted to life on small, sub-tropical isles surrounded by salt water. They became smaller and stockier. Their shrinking size meant they stayed cooler. They needed less food and water, and a smaller territory to roam in. Many of them developed a black facemask spilling across their eyes and nose in a T-shape. They even adapted the unique ability to survive for short periods of time on saline water when fresh water was in short supply during the dry season; how they cope with this physiologically is unknown. We don't have to go to the Galapagos Islands to see how a species evolves and adapts to its environment, we have a stunning example right here in our own state, just one of many reasons to preserve the Key Deer.
Free from natural predators, and almost without disease or parasites, the Key Deer led an idyllic life. Zoologists who have studied them refer to their daily activities as moving from bedding to feeding areas, then to fresh water, and on to "escape cover" in loafing areas. In other words, they spend the day snacking, socializing and drinking at their favorite watering hole, with more than a few well-deserved snoozes in the shade. This is the fantasy of anyone who wants to run away to a sub-tropical island, and the deer were undisturbed until man arrived on the scene. They ranged from Duck Key to Key Largo, and probably numbered no more than 2,000.
Man’s first recording of the dwarf deer was in 1755 when the shipwrecked Spaniard, Escalante Fontaneda, wrote about them during his capture by the Calusa Indians. By the late 1800s, the Key Deer was considered a desirable source of food, and the impact on its small population was catastrophic. A few people on the mainland worried about their survival, but Key residents hunted deer down with the aid of dogs until the 1930 when they became scarce and hard to find. Hunting was banned in 1939, but since the regulation was not enforced, no one worried about obeying it.Visiting fishermen from the Caribbean islands did not help. Their hunting technique was to set fire to the vegetation, use dogs to drive the frantic deer out into the open, then to slaughter them with clubs and guns. Some were even harpooned while swimming. By the 1950s, the little deer had dwindled to fewer than 50 individuals, a number too small to sustain the species. Sadly, as is so often the case, man waited to swing into action when annihilation was almost certain. Happily for the Key Deer, the action worked, largely due to a cartoon by Jay N. "Ding" Darling that depicted a callous hunting scene and drew national attention to "The Last of the Toy Deer of the Florida Keys", as Mr. Darling titled the drawing.
In 1957, the 2,400-hectare Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge was established with funds from private sources. A ranger was employed to enforce state and federal regulations, and in 1967, the Key Deer was placed on the Endangered Species List. By 1974, the population had bounced back to as many as 250 on Big Pine Key and 150 more deer spread out on the other islands. The deer had been given a second chance. Today the Refuge has 8,151 acres, and it is thought there are between 250 and 300 deer in all. Without the refuge and the rangers who manage it, the Key Deer would have no hope of survival.
It seems though that we can never sit back on our laurels and assume a species is saved. While hunting is no longer allowed, and only occurs in the case of inexcusable and inconceivable poaching, the deer are not free from manes threat. Now, loss of habitat is the biggest bullet in the rifle of extinction. Though most humans mean these deer no harm, the needs of an animal pale in importance when compared to our endless lust to develop, especially in these highly desirable islands. The Key Deer Refuge expands its boundaries whenever possible by buying up property, and this creates conflict with the locals. It is a showdown the deer may very well loose.
Another of today's bullets has four wheels and hurtles along at a speed too great to stop in time to avoid a deer crossing the road. Speed limits of 45 mph during the day (35-mph at night) along Highway 1, and 30 mph on side roads are strictly enforced. However, there are always those who ignore the limit in favor of getting somewhere "on time". Motorists hit well over fifty deer every year, many of whom do not stop to help the deer. Ideally, motorists who hit deer should call the sheriff's department; they will contact a ranger and the deer can be given medical attention immediately. Feeding the deer is prohibited. Deer that are fed associate man with food and loose their natural (and justified) fear of humans. Often the deer are fed from cars, the very thing they should avoid most.
When I was watching these endearing creatures one evening, someone pulled up in a red Honda and fed them potato chips from the passenger door. Neighborhoods have sprung up along the boundaries of the reserve, and deer gang together in unnatural groupings to feast on handouts and garden beds. Gangs could result in inbreeding and if a disease should strike, it would spread more rapidly than in the normal small groupings. It has also lead to round worm infestations because the deer eat and defecate in the same areas. Then, there are over one hundred miles of narrow mosquito ditches snaking throughout Big Pine Key. These lead to drownings, especially when young fawns, too tiny to breach the 14 inches of water, fall in and perish in front of their helpless mothers. Pet dogs roaming in packs are equally lethal, causing horrific injuries and death.
Today's population of 300 deer that ranges from Little Pine Key to Sugarloaf Key does not need much to thrust it back to the brink of extinction. There is little chance of an increase in numbers. In 1966, 68 deer were killed by cars and 36 died from other causes. There are a little over 100 births a year, so the species is struggling just to maintain its small numbers. If a serious hurricane came through, doubled up with the relentless loss of habitat due to development, this dear little creature will be in serious trouble. How sad that would be. The Key Deer is a wonderful example of how life evolves on this planet. Like all wildlife and nature, it enriches our lives. And for its own sake, it has a right to be here. The Key Deer is a species we must watch over diligently.
THE END