Neighbors concerned with wildlife management in Georgetown

Neighbors concerned about deer trapping plan

In Georgetown, some residents of a senior-living community are speaking out against a proposed deer-trapping wildlife management plan.

GEORGETOWN, Texas - In Georgetown, some residents of a senior-living community are speaking out against a proposed deer-trapping wildlife management plan. 

The backstory:

The Sun City neighborhood of Georgetown is currently grappling with an increase in its deer population and how to handle it. 

Residents say that it has been five years since deer trapping has been used as a wildlife management tool in Sun City. 

Now that numbers are rising again, the Sun City homeowner's association is considering adopting the practice once more, in order to get the deer population under control. But some residents are not on board. 

"The HOA and the wilderness committee is working on an archaic, very, very cruel program," said Sun City resident Barbara Meisner. 

"I didn't come here to see, to see inhumane animal treatment, and it's going to start up again for no reason," said Sun City resident Linda Barde Zimmerling. 

Some residents, like Meisner and Zimmerling, say they want the HOA to scrap the plan to trap and find a non-invasive way to handle the deer population instead. 

But Sun City HOA board members say it's not that simple. 

"It isn't that we want to trap deer," said a member of the Sun City Homeowner's Association who asked to have her name withheld. "We would love it if we had a stable population, but we don't."

Sun City HOA board members say that right now, the neighborhood has approximately 7 acres of land per deer. That's significantly less than the 25 per acre metric recommended for healthy population management by Texas Parks and Wildlife. 

Because the area's deer population is rising, the homeowner's association says they need to trap 155 deer to keep the herd from getting out of hand. 

If they don't, they say there could be dangerous consequences for the neighborhood's human population. 

"Deer have hit golf carts and turned them over and injured people," said a representative for the Sun City Homeowner's Association. "It's also a bit of a traffic hazard, quite honestly, and you're talking about a senior community."

According to information from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, nearly 2 million deer-vehicle collisions occur each year in the U.S. Those accidents result in over a billion dollars' worth of economic losses every year, as well as hundreds of human deaths and thousands of injuries. 

"Everything in life can't be beautiful and wonderful, and we have to find solutions," said the Sun City HOA board member who asked to have her name withheld. 

She told FOX 7 that 90% of residents who responded to a recent survey indicated that they were happy with the association's handling of wildlife management. And representatives for the board say when trapping is in effect, the meat from the deer is processed and donated to local food pantries. 

The Sun City Homeowner's Association is expected to make a final decision on how to handle their deer problem on November 20.