City Announces Results of the 2025/26 Archery-Controlled Deer Program

Pittsburgh, PA — The City of Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety has completed another successful year of the archery-controlled Deer Management Program. The 2025-2026 season included archery hunts in Frick, Riverview, Schenley, Highland, Emerald View, Hays Woods, McKinley, and Southside Parks as well as Hazelwood and Seldom Seen Greenways. In total, 142 deer were harvested.  

Sixty-three of those deer were donated to local food banks, which provided 2,520 pounds of venison and 10,080 meals to residents.  

Again this year, there were zero public safety incidents that resulted from the program. 

The Deer Management Program is a partnership between the City of Pittsburgh and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to manage the overpopulation of white-tailed deer in city parks.  

While-tailed deer are a normal part of the ecosystem, however the unchecked and unmanaged deer population has caused increased incidents of vehicle-deer collisions, over-eating of native plant species, and loss of natural fear. 

The archery-controlled program has been effective in controlling the size of the herd and not allowing population numbers to increase, but it alone isn’t enough to reduce population numbers. 

“After ongoing collaboration with our partners at the USDA, we are continuing our targeted harvesting program in an effort to responsibly reduce the deer population”, said Sheldon Williams, Director of Pittsburgh Public Safety. “We appreciate the USDA’s sustained assistance and partnership as we work to support a balanced and healthy deer population in Pittsburgh.” 

Targeted harvesting is the selective removal of individual animals within a population and is the most effective strategy for managing the overpopulation of deer. It is often only initially needed to control the overabundance of deer with archery programs alone usually sufficient to maintain the population in successive years. 

The targeted harvesting program will only take place in Schenley, Emerald View and McKinley Parks while the parks are closed overnight (park hours are 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.). This portion of the program is completed by USDA-contracted marksmen who are trained to hit a one-inch target at 100 yards multiple times. They will begin their work this week and will finish by the end of March.  

All of the harvested deer will be donated to local food pantries  

For more information, please visit the Deer Management Program Engage PGH page HERE.