Instructions: The story below deals with the amount of money spent at South State College due to the presence of deer on the campus. SSC is registered as a wildlife refuge where approximately 1,600 deer live. Edit the story for Associated Press style, grammar and clarity. Fact check the information presented and make the necessary changes. If the editor requires new or additional information, make additional notations. What information could help with the overall validity of the story? Rewrite passages accordingly.
South State College deer have a negative impact on school finances, costing the college roughly $9000-$16,400.
Derek Mitchell, superintendent of South State College grounds, said an estimated $500-$600 is spent annually on deer repellent for the campus.
At the SouthState CollegeHistoricalMuseum deer repellent has been found to be pretty successful.
Horticulturalist Holly Wright of SSCHM said they have been using the same type of deer repellent for the past three years.
Despite its success, “we spend $3000-$5000 annually on deer repellent,” Wright said.
Vegetation has to be replanted on the SouthState campus as well as at HistoricalMuseum because deer eat the plants.
Even though deer resistant plants are purchased, Wright said that some of the plants are pulled out of the ground by the deer when they try the plants and discover they don’t like them.
Not all deer repellent works and deer will sometimes still eat the plants. Because deer eat so many of the flowers at HistoricalMuseum, plentiful amounts of plants are grown in the greenhouse explained Wright. There are extra flowers for the instances where deer eat other plants and they need to be replaced.
By having their own greenhouses at HistoricalMuseum, Wright said it is a way to save money. About half of the plants grown in the greenhouse are grown from seed and the other half from plugs, also referred to as starter plants. Although having a greenhouse is cost efficient, $5000-$10,000 is spent on plants in general.
As a ball park figure, Mitchell said $500-$800 is spent on vegetation that is planted for the purpose of replacing that eaten by deer on the SouthState campus.
Wright said no specific plants are purchased for the purpose of replanting in order to replace those that have been eaten by deer at HistoricalMuseum for the past several years because deer repellent has been pretty effective.
The drought does have an effect on the amount of plants and flowers eaten by deer. When a drought occurs there is less water so deer eat more of the vegetation planted by the school because those plants have more moisture.
Deciding what plant life to plant is not an easy task.
“It’s a team effort,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell meets with several other individuals including Betty Smith, who works in the greenhouses on main campus. Smith provides advice on what vegetation to plant.
According to Mitchell, some different plants are going to be planted in the fall to see how the deer do. There would be more choices in what flowers to plant on campus if the deer did not eat so many of the plants. Because of the deer there is less of a variety of flowers on campus.
Deer seem to be the only wildlife on campus that financially impact the school. According to Professor Adam Hames of Animal Science, other wildlife on campus includes bobcats, coyotes, turkey, opossum, raccoons and skunks.
Even though deer create the most visual damage by eating plants on campus, skunks have been known to crawl under Land Hall and even Carroll, Hames said.
Wright said groundhogs often create problems by digging holes in the ground at HistoricalMuseum and that sometimes the holes have to be filled.
Deer physically impact the SouthState campus by their presence. There is about a 1-1 ratio of deer to students with about 1500- 1600 deer on campus. According to Hames, there are about 25 deer-vehicle collisions on campus per year.