Deer control can be expensive. Just ask administrators in Upper St. Clair, who have agreed to pay $20,000 to a federal agency described as a "deer SWAT team" to get rid of 80 deer.

Trained sharpshooters from the USDA Wildlife Service will move in at night, kill deer living on township land and neatly remove the carcass "without anyone knowing they were ever there," said Gary Fujak, a Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife conservation officer.

They will have the meat processed and distributed to a local nonprofit, Hunters Sharing the Harvest, which gives venison to food banks and needy families.

All of this will be done within a 10-day period early next year.

The wildlife team, based in Ligonier, is best known for deer cull work at airport runways throughout Pennsylvania.

Fujak said the $20,000 fee would fund sharpshooter's expenses, such as fuel, travel and equipment, as well as meat processing costs.

Upper St. Clair received approval in October for the Deer Control Political Subdivision Permit from the Game Commission. It allows the use of firearms in populated suburban areas, including residential property and parkland.

Only two municipalities in Pennsylvania -- Fox Chapel and Fairmont Park, near Philadelphia -- have been awarded the special permit.

The permit restricts deer cull activity to Feb. 1 through Sept. 30. This is separate from the state's legal hunting season, which runs from October through January with some breaks in between.

"This is not hunting," Fujak told those in attendance at a meeting last week. "This is like a SWAT team, but instead of taking down terrorists, they will be taking out deer."

Nobody is permitted to hunt on township property, Fujak said, other than those who have been tested and assigned a special territory within the township's 485-acre Boyce-Mayview Park.

Rich Oprison, who moved into the township last year, said he was not made aware that hunting would be allowed only 150 yards from his back yard, which is near Mayview State Hospital.

He told the board last week that notification about where and when hunting is conducted in the township should be "blatantly obvious."

Whitetail Management South bowhunters have harvested an average of 40 deer per season for the past four years, but the number of deer-vehicle collisions continues to rise.

The township's whitetail management report said that of the 189 deer-vehicle collisions reported in 2004, approximately 48 percent occurred on Washington Road, near the park.

That number is up from 157 accidents reported in 2003.

The report estimates there are 800 deer in the park.

"That's a little bit of guessing and a little bit of science," said Mark Mansfield, assistant township manager. When asked what impact the removal of 80 deer would have on a herd that size, Fujak replied, "If those deer weren't removed, the population would continue to rise. But it has to be an ongoing maintenance thing if it's going to work."