Bald Head Island villagers consider contraceptives for deer

BALD HEAD ISLAND (AP) — Officials on Bald Head Island are now working with university researchers to see if they can use contraceptives to limit the deer population there.

Village officials had been using a controlled hunt to cull the herd. That program reduced the number of deer from 500 to about 120 in five years.

The village has now decided to work with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington to test the contraceptive method, now that the herd is a manageable size.

Researchers say they have started fitting deer with radio collars to see if the deer are staying on the island or migrating across the shoals to southern New Hanover
County.

The research will cost the village more than $60,000 over two years.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)