KENT, Ohio — Kent City Council has made it a minor misdemeanor to feed deer and other wildlife, passing legislation Oct. 21 that residents and city officials describe as a first step toward curbing a deer population they say has grown too numerous and too tame, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
The new law prohibits providing food for “deer, geese, ducks, raccoons, skunks, rodents, fowl, chipmunks, squirrels, feral cats or other wild animals,” the Beacon Journal reported, and a violation can bring a minor misdemeanor citation carrying a $150 penalty. Feeding songbirds from a bird feeder remains allowed, so long as it does not create a nuisance, and gardens, landscape plantings and decorations are exempt, according to the Beacon Journal.
The push came from residents who told council at an Oct. 7 meeting that the deer have become a danger. Kathy Adamle told council, in remarks reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, that a deer followed her to her front door as she rolled out her garbage can. “A 300-pound deer stood there, followed me to my front door. There is a safety issue in this town. Stop the feeding,” Adamle told the Beacon Journal.
Other residents described years of damage at home. Emily Parker told council, in remarks reported by the Beacon Journal, that the gardens that helped sell her and her husband Carl on their house 14 years ago are now devastated, and that she has to cage anything she wants to see bloom. Carl Parker told the Beacon Journal the couple regularly has a herd of 10 or more deer bedding in their backyard and their neighbor’s, and that deer that once fled when he opened the door no longer scatter when he claps or throws a Frisbee.
City officials say the animals’ behavior itself has changed. Melanie Baker, Kent’s service director, told council on Oct. 7, in remarks reported by the Beacon Journal, that she was amazed at how much the deer mentality had changed in 10 years — that the animals have become domesticated, adapted to backyard living, lost their fear of humans and broadened their diets well beyond the plants once considered deer resistant. Baker also told the Beacon Journal she learned at a seminar that coyotes, the deer’s natural predators, are adapting too, finding it easier to eat from a pet’s dish than to chase a deer.
Kent is not an outlier in the region. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources reported this summer that Medina, Portage and Summit counties all saw marked increases in their deer harvests over the three-year average, the Beacon Journal reported. Portage County hunters harvested 3,498 deer in the 2025-26 season, 19 percent above the three-year average of 2,939, while the statewide buck harvest of 99,008 was the second largest in Ohio history, behind only the 100,766 bucks taken in 2024-25, according to ODNR figures cited by the Beacon Journal.
Wildlife is reshaping landscapes elsewhere in Ohio as well. In Marion County, the Big Island Wildlife Area recently grew by 43 acres as former golf land turned to habitat, and in Lake County, Morton Salt’s Fairport Harbor mine closure is changing another Northeast Ohio community’s relationship with the land around it.
State wildlife officials caution that a feeding ban, on its own, will not shrink the herd. Geoffrey Westerfield of the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Akron district office told the Beacon Journal that educating the public about deer and the downside of feeding wildlife is only the first step, because a deer population typically grows about 30 percent a year. Some form of culling, he told the Beacon Journal, will be needed as well.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the feeding prohibition, its $150 minor-misdemeanor penalty and its songbird and garden exemptions are enacted, per the Beacon Journal’s account of the Oct. 21 legislation. What Kent has not yet decided is whether it will take the further steps state officials describe — an urban archery program of the kind Medina has adopted, a sharpshooting program, or a costlier program combining culling with sterilizing does, which Westerfield told the Beacon Journal can run $1,500 to $2,500 per deer, against $400 to $600 per deer for targeted removal alone.
Westerfield also warned, in remarks reported by the Beacon Journal, that there is no quick fix: reaching a seemingly tolerable level — one where deer-vehicle crashes fall and residents’ concerns ease — can take up to five years.
What happens next: Kent residents who feed wildlife now risk a citation, and council’s next decision is whether the feeding ban stays a standalone first step or becomes the opening move in a funded deer-management program. Either way, the deer that have learned to treat Kent’s backyards as home are unlikely to unlearn it on their own.
Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0