Coventry High School students Joseph Moreau, left, Dan Scudieri and Steven Renaud mug for the automatic camera they have just mounted at Moosup Farm as part of a deer study they and other members of biology teacher Bill Drew’s 10th-grade class are conducting there. Shown below are, from left, Scudieri, Justin Gaffney, Renaud, Gerald Taylor, teacher Bill Brew, Chelsea Paul and Moreau.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

COVENTRY — When Peter Fratantuono, the owner of Moosup Farm, steps out into his backyard and looks beyond the fields which soon will be lush with produce for the market, he sees thousands of rolling acres of dense woodland — home to his stiffest competition — stretching to the Connecticut line and beyond. Hidden in those woods are ever-hungry white-tail deer. In season, they routinely trek across his dirt driveway and up to the fields, situated where Plainfield Pike and the Moosup River meet, to help themselves to fresh broccoli, strawberries and anything else Fratantuono has growing.

“The deer have always been here,” said Fratantuono, who has run his farm for 20 years. “They like to eat everything. In Rhode Island there are not many hunters left. I like to shoot at them [myself] and they run.”

Fratantuono, a psychologist-turned-farmer, and his wife, Ingrid, cope with their forest neighbors.

They get a nuisance permit, allowing farmers and others out-of-season hunting on their own land, from the state Department of Environmental Management. Their dogs bark at the deer to scare them off. They have some wire fences. Still, Fratantuono says he has lost thousands of dollars in crops, at Moosup River Farm and a 10-acre cornfield he once leased from the University of Rhode Island.

Now, a group of Coventry High School students is working to find ways to deter the deer from grazing on his farm.

In February, six 10th-grade biology students led by teacher William Brew launched a project to track the number of deer passing though and what paths they are taking. They have placed two cameras — with sensors to trigger their shutters — in woods on Fratantuono’s land,to photograph the deer to determine how many are around, said Brew. The next step, probably in summer, will be an economic impact study and research on methods to deter the deer without culling them.

The project is being undertaken under the high school’s service learning program, and the students purchased the cameras and global positioning system equipment with grants from Rhode Island Living Democracy and KIDS Civic Action Network, Brew said.

Last Friday, Brew and his students were on the outskirts of Fratantuono’s farm to position the cameras and have them ready for when the deer start to come out.

“What we are getting is baseline data,” Brew said, as he watched Joseph Moreau, 15, attach a camera to a pine tree using a short Bungee cord. “There is nothing in the fields now. Once the fields start growing the flowers and the leafy stuff, they will start at the fields.”

Brew said the project gives his students insight to the types of careers available to people who like being in the outdoors.

“There are actual jobs, a multitude of jobs in wildlife management. Wildlife biologists do the same research to make a hypothesis,” he said.

Gerald Taylor, 15, who ran down a hill of pines triumphantly holding a large bone — which Brew said was probably a cow rib — said he really appreciates the project, researching the deer’s habits and the insight it may offer Fratantuono.

“We actually get to understand how the population of deer will affect life for the family. They need to live on what they grow,” Gerald said.

Joseph said the opportunity to get outdoors in a rural section of town was reward enough.

“I live in the city part of Coventry. I learned the history of the area. It’s good to know there is still some of that,” he said.

Fratantuono, who has two children enrolled a Coventry High School, says he appreciates what the students are trying to accomplish.

“Bill [Brew] is coming in to see where their paths are. We’ve already alternated their path to the driveway, because of the dogs and the fencing,” Fratantuono said, noting that the deer have move further south, finding another way onto his land. “[But] they tend to be creatures of habit.”