After 95-Year Ban, Tremont Advances Limited Deer Hunt for Town Meeting Vote.
Three-year trial would move forward only after both town voters and state regulators sign off.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission.
TREMONT—Partially reversing a ban that has been in effect for 95 years takes a lot of work. In the case of a proposed deer hunt in Tremont, an activity that has been banned on Mount Desert Island since 1931, careful consideration via select board meetings, public hearings, writing and editing the plan, and consultation with the state are all steps just to get it before voters at town meeting.
There, the voters can have the final word.
The plan will not be officially approved by the state, if it is approved, until after the town meeting vote, if it passes there.
At its February 17 meeting, the Tremont Select Board held a 76-minute public hearing that was attended by 25 members of the public, with many of them having a comment.
Bass Harbor resident George Sanker started off the public hearing by saying that he opposes the hunt and is “firmly against this hunt for several reasons.”
Sanker said that he loves whitetail deer and pretty much all wildlife and finds that whitetail deer are spectacular wild animals.
“I have seen lots of deer as a wildlife photographer, but it’s still a thrill for me every time I see one,” Sanker said.
Sanker then spoke about the current deer hunting ban on MDI saying, “Deer hunting has been banned on MDI since 1931. Many of the same people who gave us the gift of ANP (Acadia National Park) were the ones who were behind that ban. George Dorr, the father of Acadia, Edsel Ford, John D. Rockefeller Jr., and many others. That 1931 law, which is in the regulations of fish and game, declared that deer hunting would be banned from MDI in perpetuity.”
“The founders of ANP wanted deer hunting banned from this island forever. They envisioned the park and all of MDI as a safe, peaceful sanctuary where wildlife could live without fear of humans,” Sanker continued. “They desired a protective tranquil environment both for the animals and for the visitors to enjoy nature undisturbed. I believe great deference should be given to the people who founded Acadia and created the ban on hunting.”
The banning of the hunting of all deer predators would be a preferred method for deer population control on Mount Desert Island, in his opinion, Sanker said.
Sanker spoke about deer being legally killed in all of Maine and New England with MDI being the one and only deer sanctuary in the northeast. Partially because of this, some of the biggest and most impressive bucks in the northeast live on this island, said Sanker, who made a plea for the exclusion of bucks from the proposed hunting plan to discourage trophy hunting.
Sanker also mentioned the feeding of deer being an issue because people are giving large amounts of food that is more easily accessed by deer and of higher value to a deer’s palette, with this feeding activity often being close to roads.
If the 1931 ban is lifted, Sanker feels that it should be lifted by consenting votes of all of the towns on the island and that only having a hunting season in Tremont will have an adverse effect on the other island towns and Acadia National Park, therefore, Sanker believes the other island towns should have a say in whether or not one town creates a hunting season.
The next speaker, Southwest Harbor resident Charlotte Gill, also said that a hunting season in Tremont will effect the rest of the island because it is really one connected ecosystem and that it should be an islandwide decision.
Gill said that one of her bigger issues with the proposed plan is that there is no population study to show an increase in the deer numbers and no non-lethal option in the proposed plan and that it “is entirely about killing deer.”
The plan centers on antlerless deer which makes the hunt about birth rates according to Gill, and she believes that birth rates should be reduced using birth control methods instead. That would prevent turning a hunt into an annual cycle of culling deer.
Gill also acknowledged that she realizes that the State of Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife does not currently authorize deer fertility control as a management tool but said that this is policy and not law, so it can be changed when there is a “serious well-designed proposal on the table.”
“Over the coming months, I intend to work on exactly that, a formal proposal to the state to consider allowing deer fertility control here, using Mount Desert Island as a pilot program. My goal would be to pursue this in a way that does not place burden on taxpayers but instead looks to public fundraising, grants, and support from private and philanthropic groups,” Gill said.
Gill also clarified that she thinks that population control should be a hybrid program, utilizing birth control and a hunt, both of which could run at the same time in the fall when the proposed hunt would be scheduled to start.
If the proposed hunt is for population management, then there should be some form of management and not just killing, Gill said.
Attendee Marc Fink commented that falling back on a long-standing ban on hunting also ignores other long-standing traditions such as hunting that happened prior to the 1931 ban, those are traditions that are held by families who have been on MDI and living in Tremont for generations.
Alex Johnson of Seal Cove said that he loves deer, loves watching them and loves enjoying them from a distance. “I think feeding deer should be punishable by jail time.”
Johnson said feeding deer conditions them to stay close to people and not have a fear of cars and other things that they should naturally have a fear of.
He also spoke about having Lyme disease this past year so badly that even as a healthy younger man he doesn’t understand how people can live with the disease.
Johnson also commented that he is opposed to the shotgun portion of the proposed plan and thinks the town should start slowly, with archery only. He is also not opposed to not having bucks hunted due to the natural hierarchy of deer and the fact that killing males doesn’t do anything positive for population control.
Offering the perspective of someone “who has been paying attention to the ecosystem on a pretty granular level” as a gardener and full landscape manager of properties, Josie Lawlor said that the properties that she manages and works on have had to put up a lot of fencing and other deterrents to protect the properties from deer. A negative aspect of these deer deterrents is that they then cut off travel ways for other species of animals.
“I absolutely support a hunt,” said Lawlor, who continued by saying that she is glad that it is being proposed as a trial period so that issues can be worked out or the hunt can be stopped if it doesn’t work out as planned.
One audience member asked what happens if a deer is shot by a hunter but does not die immediately, if at all, and travels onto another piece of land.
Audience member Heath Higgins responded that a hunter would generally ask the neighboring landowner for permission to go on their land and pursue the deer. If the landowner refused the permission, the hunter could call the game warden and have them come and pursue the deer on the hunter’s behalf.
Johnson said, “I feel bad when I take a deer; I thank it every time; I appreciate it; I take a minute to absorb whatever it is around me. I don’t get all horned up about shooting a deer; I feel a little bad about it. It hurts, I do my best to make it quick.”
SELECT BOARD DISCUSSION
After the public hearing, the select board had a discussion about the current proposed plan and whether it wanted to make any changes to it.
Chair Jamie Thurlow asked the rest of the board about restricting the hunting to landowners’ own property as a partial answer to people’s concerns about trespassing to hunt.
Member Kevin Buck said that he was wondering if the hunt was even going to be effective and that he thought that the more restrictions added, the less potential the hunt has for effectiveness, adding that he was feeling pretty safe about the rules that they had in the proposed plan already.
Thurlow said that he feels like more then 50% of the community is in favor of the hunt and that it is the select board’s duty to put forth a safe plan for the voters to decide on.
Town Manager Jesse Dunbar clarified that even though the submitted plan will be for a three-year trial, the select board will have the ability to sunset the hunt after any November in those three years.
Buck said that he is in favor of allowing the hunting of anterless deer only so that way the herd reduction aspect is the focus and trophy hunting can be eliminated which he feels would be the biggest draw for poachers or other unauthorized hunters.
Without a vote, the select board agreed to remove the hunting of bucks from the proposed plan.
There was much discussion regarding if the allowed hunters should be residents, landowners who may or may not be Tremont residents, Tremont residents who may not actually own the home they live in or own any land, or all of these options.
The select board could not come to a consensus on who should be allowed to hunt, so Thurlow suggested that they put it to vote, which they did.
Thurlow made a motion that only residents be allowed to hunt which was seconded by Vice Chair McKenzie Jewett but after more comment, both the second and motion were rescinded.
After a straw poll to gather general feelings, Buck made a motion to draft the ordinance to include residents only. Thurlow seconded Buck’s motion and the vote failed 2-2 with Thurlow and Buck voting yes, and Jewett and member Howdy Goodwin voting no.
Goodwin said, “I think landowners also should be able to hunt.”
The next motion was made by Jewett to allow residents and landowners only for the special hunt. The motion was seconded by Goodwin. The motion passed 3-1 with Thurlow voting no.
There was some discussion about what hunting zone Tremont should be a part of, which is a determination made by the state, and Dunbar was directed to pursue Tremont being a sub-zone of Zone 26 which includes all of Mount Desert Island. The zoning determination would play a part in how many anterless deer tags were available to try and help ensure effectiveness of the hunt, the goal being to try and secure 200 permits.
Buck made the final motion which was to request the town manager to make the approved amendments to the draft deer management plan and submit it to IFW for input. Goodwin seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.
Member Eric Eaton had an excused absence for the February 17 meeting.
The next meeting of the Tremont Select Board is scheduled for March 2 at 5 p.m., in the Harvey Kelley Meeting Room at the town office.
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All photos: Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story
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Gill had the best idea.