Deer can be seen languidly walking through the village, and they have expanded their palates, moving from longtime favorites like tulips to previously shunned plants like impatiens; the bottom of the village’s 100-acre wood is now mostly barren.

Dr. Rutberg, whose center is part of Tufts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, has researched deer contraception for years. To date, his work has focused on self-contained areas, like Fire Island in New York and the fenced-in campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland. He has achieved reductions in population of 50 percent over five years. While Hastings is hemmed in by the Hudson River and the Saw Mill River Parkway, deer can easily head south from Dobbs Ferry or north from Yonkers, communities that are likewise overrun.

“Hastings will be challenging,” Dr. Rutberg said. “From a research perspective, islands make good subjects because you have some control over what goes on there. But if we really want to see if it will work in contexts where it matters, then we need more open communities, and Hastings will be the first one. The success of the project will depend at least as much on the deer as on us.”

Image Credit... The New York Times

Hastings, which measures about two square miles, is believed to be home to as many as 70 to 120 deer. Biologists and federal officials say that a maximum of 5 to 15 deer per square mile is tolerable. Some studies indicate that female deer can live their whole lives within a quarter-mile of where they were born. “It’s likely that 90 percent of the females we inject will be local,” Dr. Rutberg said.

That would bode well for the Hastings project, which could be undermined by a sudden influx of deer from other towns. In May, Dr. Rutberg and Mayor Swiderski met with officials from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to discuss the use of contraception.

“They are skeptical,” Mr. Swiderski said. “They think migration will overwhelm the program unless it’s a closed system.”