Tega Cay City Council Approves Deer Sterilization Program

TEGA CAY- Tega Cay city council voted unanimously Monday to approve sterilizing deer around the peninsula in their city. Now, a company named White Buffalo will sterilize up to 200 deer.

Council earmarked $304,000 in the 2024-25 city budget for wildlife management. All eyes are on the deer project.

“The sterilization process certainly has to happen before the culling process,” says city manager Charlie Funderburk. “So the number we provided to you in the budget workshop also includes the culling of 80 deer.”  

Managing the deer population is an ongoing battle in Tega Cay. In January, city council voted to cull 160 deer with a price tag of $100,000 in taxpayer money. Ultimately, only 36 deer were harvested.

White Buffalo says it’s confident it can sterilize 150, maybe even 200 deer. Tega Cay Mayor Pro Tem Carmen Miller is cautious.

“I think we’re going to have a lot of residents that are very upset if the reduction of the issue didn’t happen, and that we still have the same number of deer that are here to live out the rest of their lives with the same impacts that they complained about to begin with,” Miller says.

 Others are more optimistic.

“Even if they sterilize a large group of deer in those populated areas where there’s the most nuisance, we will see a reduction in property damage because those deer aren’t having babies anymore so their eating habits are going to change,” says council member Scott Shirley. 

It is expected that the sterilization process will begin sometime in late October or early November.