Young Male Key Deer, Florida Postcard

"Young Male Key Deer, Florida" by Catherine Sherman. A young male Key Deer finds refuge from the heat of the day in the shade of a commercial building near the National Key Deer Refuge on the lower Florida Keys. Other key deer have joined him in the shade. The endangered Key deer is the smallest subspecies of the North American white-tailed deer. They are the only large herbivore in the Florida Keys and can be found in every habitat, where they feed on dozens of native plant species. Poaching and habitat loss had reduced the number of Key deer to only a few dozen animals by the 1950’s, but establishment of the Refuge and subsequent listing of the deer as endangered in 1967 has allowed for protection and a dramatic recovery of the species. The deer now number close to a thousand, and are most concentrated on Big Pine and No Name Keys, where an estimated 75 percent of the population lives.