Hilton Head community again cancels deer kill. Why some residents don’t call it a win
Palmetto Dunes, a mid-island gated community on Hilton Head Island, has once again canceled a deer-killing operation where it would hire sharpshooters to control the animal population.
But this cancellation wasn’t because of residents’ backlash.
This time, a calculating error in the community’s survey of its deer population has put the brakes on the deer cull.
In an email to property owners Tuesday, Palmetto Dunes leadership announced it would cancel a cull that was scheduled to happen before March 1. It said “a key deer density metric provided to the Association was incorrectly calculated in 2020.”
The error has actually occurred in the community’s count of deer every year since 2014, leading Folk Land Management, the contractor responsible for surveying the deer population, to underestimate the amount of land each deer in the community has to live and feed on.
Folk Land Management’s report included a miscalculation: Surveyors were not sure whether the land visible was calculated in feet or yards, which led the company to report deer density based on 78 observable acres.
The company originally reported the community had about 2.3 acres of open land per deer based on 78 total observable acres.
But Palmetto Dunes actually sits on 235 observable acres, which means its deer density is three times smaller — 6.4 acres per animal.
The reversal of the deer cull has satisfied some residents who have been outspoken about sharpshooters killing animals in their neighborhood. Although Palmetto Dunes has never performed a deer cull, the miscalculations have also prompted questions from residents about the accuracy of the deer management program.
Palmetto Dunes is home to three golf courses and hundreds of rental properties, visitors and primary homeowners. It said it would hire a new firm to study the deer population again this fall and determine whether a cull is necessary in the future.
How do the new numbers compare?
The newly calculated deer density for 2020 is still up from previous years.
Recalculated with the correct number of observable acres, the historical density was one deer per every 8.4 acres in fall 2019 and one per 14.7 acres in fall 2014, Travis Hayes Folk wrote in the report.
Still, residents like Doreen DeSa maintain that the cancellation wasn’t an altruistic move, and would have resulted in the unnecessary killing of animals had the mistake not been caught.
“These reports were done since 2014,” she said. “That’s a really long time to have a mistake. I think the board of directors of Palmetto Dunes really needs to pay a lot more attention to what the residents are saying. They completely disregarded the opinions of the residents here.”
Deer culling on Hilton Head
In its materials previously published online in support of the deer cull, Palmetto Dunes included a roundup of deer cull numbers in other communities.
The culls in Sea Pines, Leamington, Indigo Run and Hilton Head Plantation occurred in 2020 with little commentary from residents.
According to the survey, Sea Pines killed 40 deer last year; Leamington, which is neighbors with Palmetto Dunes, killed 30; Hilton Head Plantation killed 25; Indigo Run has removed 416 deer since 2004.
Beaufort County has had a deer-culling program in place since 2000, according to previous reporting by The Island Packet. Between 2000 and 2016, 5,030 deer were killed in Beaufort County’s gated communities.
State wildlife officials, general managers on Hilton Head and biologists consider the program a success, and said in 2016 that culling significantly reduced the number of deer-car collisions and complaints from residents about damaged landscaping.
