Report of Deer Sighting in Morningside Heights

A Citizen App user reported seeing a deer in Sakura Park at 122nd and Riverside Drive at 7am on Monday, May 16.

We reached out to NYC Parks, and while a representative wasn’t able to confirm the Sakura Park sighting, she did mention receiving one other report of a deer sighting this weekend. We asked her where the other sighting took place but have not heard back.

Reports of animal sightings started increasing early on in the pandemic. In June 2020, a spokesperson for NYC Parks told QNS.com that they’d “received increased wildlife sighting reports every month with the exception of April.”

While deer sightings aren’t too common in Manhattan, they have been spotted on and around the UWS before – like the one who was found behind a building on West 100th Street in 2015 (who unfortunately passed away after it was brought to a vet).

NYC deer are most commonly found in Staten Island and the Bronx, specifically in Pelham Bay and Van Cortlandt Parks. But a January 2020 study by NYC Parks showed that the deer population in Staten Island had declined by 24% since January 2017, which was the direct result of a deer population management program in which male deer were sterilized. “The results depict a clear relationship between the number of sterilized bucks and the decline in fawn births. There has been an annual decrease in the number of deer born since the sterilization study began that closely mimics the number of deer sterilized by year,” the study stated. “Between 2019 and 2020, results showed the greatest drop in population since the program began, the largest rate of decrease.”

To report a wildlife sighting, click here.

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