City of Pittsburgh turns to USDA sharpshooters to deal with deer population in city neighborhoods
Urban deer; They've eaten through the city's major parks and have fanned out through the neighborhoods, feasting on gardens and colliding with cars.
Meanwhile, bow hunters have only stabilized the herd, and so the city has now turned to sharpshooters.
USDA sharpshooters have completed a pilot program to shoot deer at Frick and Riverview Parks on the Northside and in just a short amount of time, they have harvested more than 100 deer and proponents said they should be used citywide.
While they're beautiful animals, they've eaten just about all there is to eat in the major city parks, and now they're roaming throughout the neighborhoods looking for food.
"That's what put our committee together because so many people, including my house, they ate everything in my front yard, and I live a half block from the Squirrel Hill Business District," said Mardi Isler of Save Our Parks and Gardens.
The Group, Save Our Parks and Gardens, petitioned the city to cull the deer, and two years ago, the Gainey Administration allowed the first group of bow hunters who stabilized the population. For the past two months, the city has hired USDA sharpshooters for a limited pilot program, which they said is finally bringing that population down.
"Targeted harvesting when the USDA comes in at night with a highly-specialized team to do targeted removal of deer," said Lee Schmidt, the Pittsburgh Public Safety Director.
In four months over the fall and early winter, bow hunters harvested 199 white-tailed deer in five of the city's major parks. However, in just 10 nights over the past two months, USDA sharpshooters killed 136 deer in Frick Park and Riverview Park. Of that 136, 60 were in Frick Park and 76 were in Riverview Park.
The city called the pilot program a success, and stated that the ability of the sharpshooters to harvest a greater number of deer in a shorter amount of time makes a stronger case for their deployment citywide.
"That's what we're looking at now," Schmidt said. "Whether we expand the entire program to other parks as well, that's a discussion we'll have with the mayor's office, and then we'll need council support for the finances."
Going forward, the city plans to use both bow hunters in the fall and early winter, and sharpshooters again next spring. Save Our Parks and Gardens believes that combined, the efforts can bring the deer down to a sustainable level and restore the major parks.
"We have to ensure for the future that we have culled the deer to the point where our parks can accommodate and that also we'll be able to bring back," Isler said. "The native plants and the trees that we'll be able to bring our parks back to the beautiful parks they should be."
Since the beginning of its deer culling, the city has harvested 440 deer and donated 9,120 pounds of meat to local food banks and said it comes to an estimated 36,480 meals provided.
