Whitetail deer in Costal North Carolina
The exploding deer population on Bald Head Island is not new nor is the island residents opposition to the most reasonable and cost effective method of using hunting to control the population. The latest plan to control the deer population is to allow NC State University to use the island deer population to experiment with darting does with contraceptives to see if that will work.
Bald Head Island, which conducted six herd culls between 2000 and 2008. The deer population was so excessive in 2000 more than 200 animals were removed from the herd “and the population was still healthy,” Peck said.
Contraceptives in the general deer population have not proven effective, Norville said.
“It would only work in a closed setting, like a pen where animals are tightly controlled,” he said. “In an open system where the deer fully move and go there is no delivery method that is effective enough and proficient enough to deliver a contraceptive to each and every deer, and it is highly expensive.”
The cost is about $500 per animal, Norville said.
The Urban Archery Program is designed for situations just like this and it is ridiculous that Bald Head Island will spend a lot of money to control deer that could be done for little or no cost. According to Star News the cost of the NC State experiment will be $75,000 a year and they have to commit to 5 years. That’s a lot of money to throw down the drain when bow hunters could easily control the deer population .
