E. Hampton Village votes to OK deer sharpshooters

East Hampton Village's town board voted unanimously Friday to approve a plan to use federal sharpshooters to kill as many as 3,000 deer on eastern Long Island this winter.

The cull, planned over 40 nights starting in February, would be carried out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program as part of a joint agreement with the Long Island Farm Bureau, which is coordinating a hunt on the North and South forks.

Following a public hearing in which several people objected to the hunt, the board voted to spend up to $15,000 and authorize mayor Paul Rickenbach Jr. to sign the agreement. The total cost of the cull is about $300,000, according to Joe Gergela, executive director of the farm bureau.

With David M. Schwartz