Swelling deer herd hems in South Korean islanders

ANMA ISLAND, South Korea — Under the light of a moon partially obscured by cloud, the eyes of a dozen deer glow uncannily in the dark on South Korea's island of Anma.

They destroy crops and damage trees in their nocturnal wanderings, but by day the spot is deceptively peaceful, though the humans here must live behind fences, penned into homes and fields, as the animals outnumber them seven to one.

The people of a village nestled beside peaks and a rocky shoreline near South Jeolla province have all but given up their fight against the deer, whose numbers have exploded since the mid-1980s. Now, they say the only option is to cull the herd.

"I'm sorry to say this, but we need to get rid of them, which is our intention, even if that means we have to kill them," said Jang Jin-young, 43, one of the leaders of the village, which numbers about 150.

Since the rules ban such efforts, he says the government is weighing a petition from the villagers to designate the deer as "harmful wildlife", rather than livestock, so clearing the way for the herd to be thinned by hunting or other measures.

"There are so many deer, I've never seen as many as this before," said Kim Seung-man, who left his job digging up ginseng to anaesthetise the deer with blowgun darts so that they can be carried off the island in the effort to reduce their numbers.

Still, sparkling in its serene setting, the island has a lot to offer visitors, said Jang, as the deer are a menace only to residents, particularly the few who still farm.

Spread over an area just slightly larger than Central Park in Manhattan, the deer are now estimated to number 1,000, after years of grazing and breeding freely in the absence of predators.

"I just want all the deer on the island to