Cape Girardeau City Council moves forward with allowing homeowners to bow hunt

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – Managed deer hunts in Cape Girardeau got past the first step at Monday night’s city council meeting.

The first vote of the city council put into motion an ordinance that will allow private homeowners with more than two acres to essentially bow hunt on their own property.

Ty Metzger is the Nuisance Officer with the Cape Girardeau Police Department. He took this project on a couple years ago and it has been successful for the city.

Cape Girardeau City Manager Dr. Kenny Haskins says this is a bit of a change from the past. Home and property owners will have the opportunity to bow hunt on their property. It will be managed with a deer hunt registration form they fill out.

Some members of the city council were a bit apprehensive because too many people hunting on two acres could be dangerous.

Officer Metzger says that could be a risk, but he says it is happening right now whether it is managed or not.

“Well, that’s a thing. There can be a lot of theories here. Again, if you have two acres or greater at roughly 970 parcels, again residential what’s commercial what could be utilized and what couldn’t be utilized. On something like that I don’t have that information, but I would think if you figured half of those were carnival and then perhaps half of that of those people may or may not hunt I don’t think the percentage of that is going to be that great because again realistically you know a deer could run off 20 acres as easy as it could 2 acres there is still a factor in theory.”

The first vote of the process got passed however there will be another vote that will take place in two weeks.