Tega Cay’s deer quandary: shoot, sterilize, move, or let them be? Residents sound off
What may sound like a hunter’s dream is a nightmare for some Tega Cay residents. This city has more deer than solutions on how to deal with them.
“It’s a difficult decision on either side,” Mayor Chris Gray told dozens of onlookers Monday night when Tega Cay City Council met. “We are taking all of the information that we can gather, and we’re going to make the best decision that we can make as council for the city, on everything we do.”
Gray’s comments, echoing others from council members, came after more than an hour of discussion on what many see as a deer problem.
Some residents describe dangers to pets and plants. Others say deer leave yards too messy to use. Yet others say the options for lowering the deer population could be even worse.
Deer count, and options
Charlie Funderburk, city manager, has been in contact with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources for several years. Resident concern on deer overpopulation in 2015 led to a survey. SCDNR found the city had 67 deer per square mile.
The city and state agency surveyed again this past spring, studying 1,600 acres on the peninsula often called historic Tega Cay. That survey indicated 301 deer per square mile. A survey this fall found 349 deer per square mile.
Funderburk said the city public works department disposes of about 85 deer per year.
“Not all of those are traffic accidents,” he said. “Very few — actually this year I think we’ve only had about four or five — that were traffic accidents.”
Some deer are caught on fences. Others die of natural causes, or from an animal attack.
What are the options?
Funderburk outlined several options the city has, based on conversations with the state department.
One involves bringing in licensed, expert marksmen to kill and harvest deer. The state will permit up to 80 deer harvested through that program before the city must appeal to a state board for more.
“It’s the least expensive of the options we’re finding,” Funderburk said. “They also said it’s the most efficient way to get the herd under control.”
A second option is sterilization. That option could take seven to 10 years and could cost $1,200 per deer. It could be used in tandem with the marksmen, after population is reduced.
The third option, though unpopular, is relocation.
“Oddly enough this is the one option, if you will, that both DNR and PETA, when I talked to them, were adamantly against. They said of all the options in reducing the herd, this was in their words unethical and inhumane.”
Relocation only recently became legal in South Carolina. Under this plan deer, with no natural predator in Tega Cay, would be placed in a new habitat. And deer could be injured or killed in transport.
A final option is the simplest, but the longest.
The city could do nothing. Funderburk said the herd population will, over time, diminish based on current indications that food sources are being rapidly depleted.
“These are not our statements,” Funderburk said. “These came directly from DNR.”
Resident deer opinion
Pam Gibbs said the past two years deer have become more of a problem.
“We have large numbers of deer in our yard every day, and especially after dark,” Gibbs said. “We have counted 12 in the middle of the day in our front yard.”
Gibbs said one attacked a pet dog, and deer constantly eat flowering perennials — even those supposedly immune to feeding deer — or leave waste in the yard.
“There is so much filth we no longer allow our grandchildren to play in the grass,” Gibbs said. “Those issues are minor compared to the danger the high population of deer has created in our neighborhood.”
Gibbs fears someone will have a bad wreck as deer graze in the median of Tega Cay Drive, at intersections or simply stand in the street. Another resident, on Windjammer Drive, described seeing a family of deer and knows Tega Cay is the perfect place to raise a child, blaming the leveling of trees in the area for the deer uptick.
Resident Peter Ott referenced a similar debate half a dozen years ago when Tega Cay residents were concerned about coyotes.
“If you start messing with the environment, and with nature, then that triggers other issues,” Ott said.
Several residents and council members noted a recent survey of citizens that split almost evenly down the middle, on whether the city should cull the deer population.
Resident Jason Dayton supports sterilization, but is concerned with the sharpshooter approach. Dayton said there’s a reason South Carolina has laws against hunting at night or close to residences, and why Tega Cay and other municipalities don’t allow firing of guns within their borders.
“In order to take care of the deer in Tega Cay, you probably have to do both,” Dayton said.
Mary Ickert said clearly Tega Cay is a city divided.
“I don’t debate that we have a lot of deer in the area,” Ickert said. “I get that. What I will debate, and continue to speak out on, is the option that was polled to everyone last month. Because let’s face it. There’s a reason there are rules in place not to allow hunting in a residential area.”
Resident Michele Coburn, who supports sterilization, said living near the Shore Club brings up concern for people who may drink and then walk home. If there will be shots fired Coburn wants ample public notification.
“There are a lot of citizens out at night who are not capable of making the best decisions,” Coburn said.
Coburn, like some others who spoke out Monday night, doesn’t support sharpshooters near homes where children sleep.
“There’s nobody that I trust to shoot moving objects at night, with them asleep 15 feet away,” Coburn said.
This story was originally published October 19, 2022 at 8:20 AM with the headline "Tega Cay’s deer quandary: shoot, sterilize, move, or let them be? Residents sound off."
