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Thinning the herd: Municipalities turn to lethal means to manage deer population

By Jon Andreassi staff Writer jandreassi@observer-Reporter.Com 4 min read
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With a substantial increase in deer carcasses being found in the area, Bethel Park Council took a step last month to bolster its efforts in culling the deer population.

Bethel Park Police Chief Timothy O’Connor said that since 2018, the number of carcasses picked up by animal control officers has increased from 160 to 224 in 2022.

“We went to a new animal control service in 2018,” O’Connor explained. “Prior to that, it was spotty on the data for deer collection.”

Those numbers include not just deer killed in vehicular accidents, but any deer found within the municipality, including those that succumbed to disease.

“They also contract diseases they can spread. Notably, it’s Lyme disease, but there is a whole host of other diseases they can carry. They deposit waste in people’s yards. They damage countless properties throughout the municipality. Our biggest concern is our priority of life scale. They are causing peril to human life,” O’Connor said.

At a Feb. 13 meeting, Bethel Park Council approved a contract with Suburban Wildlife Management, which has trained and certified sharpshooters to thin the deer herd.

O’Connor said they went to work immediately after the contract was approved. The sharpshooters will be active between 4 p.m. and until 6 a.m., and all local parks will be closed until April 1.

Bethel Park also has an archery program that O’Connor estimates removes an average of 55 deer per season. Bethel Park officials hope to get significantly more with the sharpshooters.

“We believe for it to be effective, we would have to have at least 200 culled,” O’Connor said.

Bethel Park is not the first South Hills community to target deer management. Mt. Lebanon contracted Suburban Wildlife several years ago for its sharpshooters, but only after exhausting a number of non-lethal options.

Ian McMeans, assistant municipal manager, said the Mt. Lebanon commission began noticing an increase in vehicular accidents involving deer.

“That was the impetus. Then in 2013 was when we really started tracking data on the number of deer-vehicular collisions. Up and up and up,” McMeans said.

They began working with officials from the Pennsylvania Game Commission and tried non-lethal recommendations first. Those included an ordinance to ban residents from feeding deer, programs at the local library and attempts to educate residents on deer-resistant plants. They also installed signage in areas with higher numbers of deer-related accidents.

The efforts did little to reduce the numbers.

In 2016 there were 122 deer-related accidents, substantially higher than the 44 reported in 2013 when they started tracking the data.

The commission then moved to the Game Commission’s lethal recommendations, and have similar sharpshooting and archery programs to Bethel Park. In 2021, the number of collisions had dropped to 38.

“We’ve definitely seen the improvement over time with the deer-vehicular collisions going down since we started the lethal methods of removal,” McMeans said.

While Peters Township in Washington County also has a sharpshooter program, the municipality handles the deer problem a bit differently. The police department manages both the sharpshooter and archery programs, rather than contracting another entity to manage them.

The council approved the sharpshooter program in 2021. The police department has officers certified by the Game Commission to act as sharpshooters.

Both the archery and sharpshooting programs in Peters have concluded for the year. According to the police department’s report, the sharpshooter program removed 250 deer this year between Feb. 1 and 19.

Residents are able to take part in the archery hunt if they fill out an application available on the Peters Township website and are approved by the police department. This season, 33 volunteers removed 53 deer.

The report reads, “This program would not have been possible were it not for the extraordinary community support. The success of the program necessitates the ability to access private property. In our case, numerous residents contacted the PTPD and generously donated their property for use in this program. As a result, the program continues to be an overwhelming success and allows us the opportunity to conduct a thorough analysis of this program and provide an even more comprehensive, township-wide approach to our deer management goals moving forward.”

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