Ringsted cemetery tests sound devices to deter flower-eating deer

Ringsted Cemetery in Denmark has installed motion-activated sound devices in a three-month trial to keep roe deer from eating flowers left on graves, DR reports.

The devices emit clicking and high-frequency sounds when movement is detected nearby. Ten were installed last week after cemetery officials received complaints from people whose flowers had disappeared within hours.

“We have set it up as a three-month trial in the hope that we can get them to leave this way,” said Søren Jensen, administrative manager at Ringsted Parish.

When DR visited this week, deer were still at the cemetery, but in the section where no devices had been installed. Jensen said it was too early to know whether the trial would work.

Inger Magrethe Brinkborg said flowers had vanished from her husband’s grave, so she had replaced them with pumpkins. A heart with a pink rose that she left at her daughter’s grave had also been eaten, leaving only a hole.

Not everyone wants the deer driven away. Charlotte Christiansen, who visits her father’s grave, said he had chosen to be buried beneath a tree because he loved the forest and its animals. She believes he would have been happy to see the deer there.