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Advisory Board Meeting

Town of Cary · Environmental Advisory Board
Tuesday, December 9, 2025 at 6:00 pm · Conference Room 11130, 316 N. Academy Street, Cary Town Hall, Cary, NC 27513

Advisory board meeting Environment and sustainabilityParks and recreationPolice and public safety

Agenda document Full packet Minutes Meeting page Watch Meeting recap

What's on this agenda

Cary's environmental advisory board took its first look on December 9 at whether the town should join North Carolina's urban archery deer season, a request that reached the town through a resident's 311 request in August. Staff were clear it is at a very early stage, with a community survey as the next step and any programme requiring an ordinance change by the council.

Urban archery runs January 10 to February 15 and covers bow and crossbow only. A municipality that wants in must send the Wildlife Resources Commission a letter of intent by April 1 each year with a map of the area. Hunting would be on private land only, with written permission from the landowner.

Summarized from the published agenda. Read the agenda itself before acting on it.

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

Members discussed deer overpopulation and tick-borne disease, education about deer processing and native plants, and what conditions to attach — lot size, distance from dwellings, baiting — along with the cost to the town and how residents would see it. Cary has 804 parcels of five acres or more.

Staff showed how other towns handle it. King prohibits shooting within 250 feet of a dwelling, school, church, occupied building, street or park, requires an elevated platform at least ten feet up, and limits it to tracts over 1.5 acres. Chapel Hill has taken part since 2010, bars owners from hiring professional hunters, and bars hunters from following a wounded deer onto adjacent property. Statewide, the 2024 urban archery season produced 160 deer across all participating municipalities, with no single town reporting more than fifteen.

A resident spoke during public comment about how public comments the board receives have turned into agenda items over time, and supported the idea of the board discussing public comments quarterly.

The board also learned its new council liaison will be a former board member, starting in January.

How the votes went

The agenda and the November 18 minutes were both adopted without objection. No other votes were taken.

From the published minutes.

Who spoke

1 member of the public spoke.

A resident spoke in person about the public comments the board receives, noting that issues raised that way have become agenda items, and said he supported the board discussing public comments quarterly.

Read from the records the government published after the meeting. Members of the public are private residents and are not named or indexed.

Speaking at this meeting

Sign up for Public Speaks Out by calling the town before noon on the day of the meeting; each speaker gets three minutes. Comments that arrive after noon are passed to the council as correspondence instead.

Town of Cary's own rules for public comment — check them before you rely on anything here.

Agenda items (4)

Other · 2Presentation · 1Discussion item · 1
  1. For any public interested in listening to the meeting, please call 1-650-479-3207 and enter access code (2556 169 3780) and password (43927759), followed by # when prompted.
    Presentation Environment and sustainabilityParks and recreationPolice and public safety
    Whether Cary should participate in the state's urban archery deer season, which runs January 10 to February 15 and covers bow and crossbow only on private land with written landowner permission. The request came from a 311 citizen request on August 2 and was discussed by the neighborhood services committee on August 19. Members raised deer overpopulation, tick-borne disease, education, conditions on lot size and distance from dwellings, cost, and how residents would view it. Staff said a community survey comes next and any programme would need council action to change the ordinance.
  2. 1. Instructions for submitting public comments
    Discussion item
    A reminder about the board's book discussion in January.
  3. 1. Consideration of Urban Archery Participation
    Other
    Speaker: Ryan Eades, Assistant Director of Special Projects Evaluate possible participation in the NC Wildlife Resources Commission urban archery season, a program using archery to manage deer populations in populated areas.
  4. 1. Book Club Planning
    Other
    Speaker: Mia South, Chair

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