Residents of South Korea's Anma island are plagued with deer who destroy local crops and trees, and are petitioning the authorities to label the herd as "harmful wildlife" to clear the way for culling to take place. - REUTERS
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00:00A menace on four hooves plagues the people who live on this remote South Korean island.
00:08After dark, it's easier to see that Anma Island's deer outnumber residents 7 to 1.
00:14They chomp on crops and trees in their nocturnal wanderings.
00:18Villagers must live behind fences, penned to their homes and fields.
00:23The problem is they can't do much about it under South Korean law.
00:26Even though they're out of control, the deer are technically considered livestock.
00:31Residents are petitioning the government to label the deer as pests so they can cull them.
00:36In the meantime, the locals have had it.
00:38They've essentially given up their fight against the deer, but not before trying all sorts
00:42of ways to deter the horde of herbivores, putting up fences, barbed wire, even playing
00:47sounds of gunshots out of speakers.
00:52Eighty-year-old Han Jong-rae works in her vegetable garden, surrounded by a six-foot-high
00:56fence, which did little to stop the animals.
01:00Look at the fence I set up.
01:03Even though I blocked it like that, the deer broke through it and ate all my crops.
01:07I can't stand it.
01:09I'd be happy if somebody could please catch them and take them away.
01:14Deer antlers are highly prized in traditional Korean medicine.
01:17That's why farmers in the mid-80s first introduced the species to Anma Island.
01:22They brought about 10 of them.
01:24But dwindling interest in such medicines dried up the antler market.
01:29The herd was left unchecked, and numbers exploded to around 1,000, spread over an area a bit
01:35bigger than Manhattan's Central Park.
01:38Antler trader Kang Dae-rin uses a blowgun to tranquilize a deer.
01:42Based near Seoul, he's visited the island several times to gauge its potential as a
01:47source of material.
01:49But he says it's almost futile to sedate them.
01:54There are lots of deer living here right now, and it's impossible to catch them by using
01:58anesthesia.
01:59The deer have already become immune, and all of them can just run away.
02:04Deer on the island also have a severe tick infestation that makes it hard to ship the
02:08animals or their antlers away.
02:11If the government agrees to reclassify deer on the island as harmful wildlife rather than
02:16livestock, village leader Jang Jin-yong says it could clear the way for hunters to help
02:21thin the numbers.
02:22Maybe it's a bit too much to bring in a hunter and catch them with a rifle.
02:28I'm sorry that I'm saying this, but at this point, we need to get rid of them, which is
02:33our intention, even if that means we have to kill them.