Southampton drafts deer plan with hunting, contraception, road signs

Southampton Town is weighing a plan to manage its deer population that emphasizes recreational hunting, dart-administered contraceptives and flashing road signs instead of more culls by the federal government.

Southampton's effort comes after U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters killed 192 deer on the East End this past winter and spring in a program that ignited protests and lawsuits and was widely considered a disappointment.

Hunters and wildlife activists, who banded together to oppose the cull, continued their unusual partnership to help draft the town's management plan.

Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said Thursday at a town board meeting that she hopes the draft serves as a template for a regional program across the East End.

"It's a timely issue, and one we hear from a lot of constituents on," Throne-Holst said. "It's one our neighboring townships are struggling with as well."

Southampton may hold a public hearing next month.

The draft plan calls for the town to form an advisory committee to consider various deer-management policies in different parts of the town, based on need.

Options include solar-powered deer-detection devices that would activate flashing signs on roads where vehicles strike the most deer, the plan states.

It also recommends expanding the range of public lands where hunters can kill deer and working with state officials to broaden hunting opportunities.

"We don't want to eviscerate the species," said Michael Tessitore, an East Quogue hunter who helped write the plan. "We want to preserve them as well."

The draft says a program to tranquilize and surgically sterilize deer is "extremely expensive" and "generally impractical" for the town. The Village of East Hampton is scheduled to begin such a program in January.

But Southampton's draft plan says an experimental technique that uses dart guns to administer vaccines that stop reproduction could work in areas inaccessible to hunters.

It also says the town could study "4-Poster" stations that attract deer with corn then soak their necks in tick-killing insecticide.

Marty Shea, the town's chief environmental analyst, said East End deer are not emaciated or diseased, indicating their population has not reached crisis levels.

But he said the animals still anger homeowners and farmers when they eat gardens and crops and cause vehicle accidents. Residents also complain the deer help spread tick-borne disease.