Tega Cay Planning To Hire Sharpshooters To Reduce Deer Population

TEGA CAY, S.C. – Leaders in Tega Cay are moving closer to implementing a plan to cull the city’s growing deer population.

The city wants to hire trained sharpshooters to begin thinning the herd, but not everyone agrees with the plan.

“Every day. Every day. And they’re in large packs,” says Tega Cay resident Sheila Smiggen.

For Smiggen and her neighbors, deer are a common sight.

“It’s a big problem. And we gotta control it,” she says.

Smiggen agrees with the city’s plan to hire USDA sharpshooters to cull the herd.

“I follow the experts’ advice. And I’m very concerned about the safety, not only of drivers but of little children that are playing,” she says.

A land management company hired by the city did its latest count last week and estimates there are currently 1,028 deer living in Tega Cay.

That’s up from 850 at the same time last year.

Tuesday, the city submitted paperwork to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to harvest 75 to 100 deer.

But experts tell the city they need to remove 300 to 360 to get the population under control.

“There’s a safety side to it. There’s also the side that, ‘Does this make sense to do?'” asks Tega Cay resident Mary Ickert.

Ickert helped form a group called the Tega Cay Wildlife Conservation Society.

She wants to work with the city to explore other options like birth control.

“That is a vaccine that these deer, that we would be able to dart the deers with, that would prevent, it’s basically a pregnancy blocker,” Ickert says.

She says the city has been receptive to her group and thinks there are better options than using sharpshooters.

“Not very cost effective. Just kinda throwing money away, and it’s not long term. It’s, you have to do it over, and over, and over, and over,” she says.

The city needs DNR board approval to cull more than 75 deer.

If everything moves forward, the sharpshooters would begin thinning the herd late this year or early next year.