It takes time to reverse a 100-year-old rule, but after almost a year of planning, public hearings and input, and consultation with officials from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the town of Tremont is close to doing just that.
Town Manager Jesse Dunbar told the Tremont Select Board this week that the latest draft of the town’s deer hunting season proposal has received unofficial approval by IFW officials.
According to Nathan Webb, wildlife division director of IFW, the present ban on deer hunting was implemented by the 85th Maine Legislature. Reference to a closed season on deer on Mount Desert Island first appeared in 1931.
All other animals that can be legally hunted in Maine can also currently be hunted on MDI.
Dunbar provided the select board on March 16 with the response he received from IFW after submitting the town’s latest proposed plan.
“Our commissioner and other leadership staff have discussed the Tremont special hunt proposal at their senior staff meeting, and they have no concerns with the proposal moving forward,” he quoted from the response. “The game warden, Lt. (lieutenant), and Sgt.(sergeant) for the area have also voiced their support. The lieutenant wanted to emphasize that restrictions on discharge in proximity to dwellings would still apply, so hunters need to be mindful of that. Otherwise, no major concerns on our end. Keep us updated, thanks.”
Back on April 3, 2025, Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham presented a bill, LD 1438, that he sponsored to the Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that would make it legal to hunt deer on MDI.
Faulkingham represents the towns of Franklin, Gouldsboro, Hancock, Sorrento, Sullivan, Winter Harbor, and Steuben.
About a month later, at an IFW Committee meeting, the legislative committee unanimously voted that the bill ought not to pass, which “killed the bill in committee.” This decision was partially based on information that state Rep. Mike Lance of Paris brought back to the committee after meeting with the Tremont Select Board.
Since then, Tremont’s Select Board has been refining plans to hold a special deer hunt as a way to reduce the number of deer-involved car crashes, destruction of private property through deer grazing, and instances of Lyme disease in humans.
Some of the finer points that have been honed down during the process involve who can hunt, where they can hunt, what weapons can be used to hunt and what sex deer can be killed.
Those points include:
- All hunting will be archery and shotgun only.
- Hunting can only take place from a fixed position, ground blind or elevated stand.
- Landowners must provide stand locations.
- Only property owners and Tremont residents may hunt.
- Only anterless deer may be taken. An anterless deer is defined by the state as any deer having antlers less than three inches in length as measured from the skull.
- Hunters will be required to register with the town office to prove residency or land ownership and will be given a permission slip which must be shown when tagging a deer at the mandated tagging station.
- The tagging station location will be either Gott’s Store in Southwest Harbor or Hansen’s Outpost in Tremont, location to be decided.
- The special hunt will take place during the month of November beginning with the 2026 hunting season and will last for a total of three years.
- All other applicable state hunting rules and guidelines must be followed including shooting distance from dwellings.
While more speakers appeared to be in favor of a hunt at public hearings, there was opposition. During multiple meetings, wildlife photographer and Tremont resident George Sanker and Southwest Harbor resident Charlotte Gill both spoke of their opposition to killing deer and alternative methods of population control.
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 at a Feb. 17 Select Board meeting.
Sanker also mentioned feeding deer as an issue at the same meeting. 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, he said.
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 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 said.
There was little discussion amongst the Select Board and the public attendees on March 16
Select Board member Eric Eaton asked, “When you guys were talking about tags and stuff, you guys kicked out the idea of a buck tag, is that correct?”
Chair Jamie Thurlow said that there was a lot of concern about hunters trying to push their luck and come to Tremont solely to shoot a buck, so they made the decision to take bucks out of the equation.
Thurlow said that in the big picture, it was a small compromise.
Eaton was concerned with an overabundance of mature bucks possibly hurting each other to establish dominance and mate among a smaller population of does.
Heath Higgins and Alex Johnson, both admitted hunters and audience members, expressed concerns similar to Eaton’s with Johnson saying that fewer does may make the mating bucks more dangerous when it comes to things such as blindly trying to run across a roadway.
All three commenters acknowledged that after one season, the town could apply to change certain rules and could add bucks if it thought it was necessary or prudent.
The special hunt plan contains language that the hunt can be ended after any of the three November hunts and the initial hunt rules, other than yearly modifications, will last for three years.
After three years, the town “will hold a town wide vote to open regular hunting. The town can specify at that time the type of season to open.”
Eaton made a motion to “certify and sign the Town of Tremont’s Deer Management Plan dated March 16, 2026, and to request the town manager place it on the May 2026 Annual Town Meeting warrant for vote by secret ballot.”
The motion, seconded by Vice Chair McKenzie Jewett, passed unanimously.
Now Tremont voters will have their say in the hunting plan. The Select Board is planning a final public hearing on April 6 and the issue will be voted on by voters at Tremont’s Annual Town Meeting on May 11.
This story was originally published by The Bar Harbor Story. To receive regular coverage from the Bar Harbor Story, sign up for a free subscription here.
