Bow hunters line up for urban deer management program

OXFORD — Thirty-two bow hunters have signed up this year for the city of Oxford’s urban deer hunt program.

The program began last year after years of complaints about deer-vehicle collisions and the animals wrecking gardens and landscaping.

Jimmy Allgood, Oxford emergency management coordinator and the city’s designated “deer guy,” tells the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal 30 hunter participated last year.

Allgood says 109 deer were killed inside the city last year. He says hunters accounted for only 44 of those. He says most of the rest died after colliding with cars.

The four-month bow hunt runs throughout the 2011-12 deer season. Hunters are assigned only where landowners request them.

The city isn’t eradicating the deer but only thinning the population. The process is expected to take years.