AUGUSTA, Maine — The possibility of changing deer hunting rules currently in place on Mount Desert Island since the 1930s is proving a bit more complicated, a state wildlife official explained in Wednesday testimony during the legislative public hearing on those potential changes proposed in LD 1438.
Nathan Webb, wildlife division director of Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, told the few legislators that attended their committee meeting that because of state law, the bans on deer hunting in Mount Desert Island towns can’t be lifted without each town indicating that it was in favor.
The department doesn’t know with certainty and data that the deer density is higher on the island than in the rest of Hancock County, but Webb believes that might be true.
Some deer hunting does occasionally occur on the island. Individual permits are issued to MDI land owners to address serious conflicts, Webb said.
Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, had presented the bill to the committee overseeing fisheries and wildlife issues on April 3, with the intention of allowing the commissioner of the fisheries and wildlife department to enact changes that would allow people to hunt deer on MDI.
Faulkingham spoke in support of his resolve Wednesday.
“This bill is a common sense step toward addressing a serious issue,” he said, adding that it would help restore ecological balance and better health outcomes for humans and other species on the island.
The bill, which was co-sponsored by three other Republican state representatives, requires the commissioner to “adopt rules opening Mount Desert Island to deer hunting in accordance with the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 12, section 11402, subsection 4.”
There are severe forest regeneration issues on the island, Faulkingham said. He mentioned that deer are consuming native species, overbrowsing to an extent that they are threatening rare plant species and displacing understory vegetation. There is also a higher risk of human and deer conflicts in areas where there is no deer hunting, he said. High deer densities also correlate with elevated populations of ticks, which can spread Lyme disease.
This is not the first time MDI communities have recognized this as a problem, he said, citing previous efforts in Bar Harbor and Mount Desert. Broader authority and managed hunts such as those that have occurred on Isleboro and Peaks Island have worked, he said.
“The state can help communities regain control” of a public health and wildlife management problem, Faulkingham said.
James Dow, an island resident who owns 44 acres in Bar Harbor and 10 acres in Tremont, approached Faulkingham last summer about the problem and asked for his help. Dow said he had a conversation with Faulkingham, who then told Dow that he would be supportive of putting in a bill for Dow and some of his friends.
“You can already hunt everything else on Mount Desert Island,” Dow told the committee. “The only thing you can’t hunt is deer.”
He said deer devastate perennials and even a fenced-in vegetable garden on his properties. He was also concerned about Lyme disease and deer-vehicle collisions. Those comments were echoed in multiple pieces of written testimony from island residents in various towns.
“I’d like to see it changed,” Dow said.
Dow was in favor of an expanded archery zone and shotgun or rifle hunting.
“No one can hunt on a national park,” he said. “At this point, we are overrun and they need to be managed.”
Rep. Gary Friedmann, D-Bar Harbor, testified in opposition.
“I do believe we have a deer problem,” Friedmann said, adding that approximately 12 years ago when he was a Bar Harbor town councilor, the town hoped to create a culling program, which was voted down by less than 50 votes in late 2014.
Friedmann also said he was surprised that Faulkingham presented the bill without consulting any of the towns directly affected. He told the committee that he believes that the best way to approach the deer issue is with a collaborative and inclusive process that would include town officials and representatives.
“It’s important for all the select boards to have input into this process,” Friedmann said. And the towns themselves need time to work on the issue. “It’s a very divisive issue, I would say, on the island.”
Rep. Stephen Wood, R-Greene, said that two MDI residents had contacted him because they’d reached out to state representatives about the bill. Friedmann said those men were from Tremont, which he does not represent. Friedmann said he’s never been approached to sponsor a bill himself, though he’s talked about the issues with people for years.
Friedmann said he’s personally in favor of some kind of deer control, but doesn’t believe the towns have had enough time to respond to the issue, which was presented April 3, 13 days before the public hearing.
Deer hunting was not allowed on all offshore islands in Maine about 100 years ago, Friedmann said, but there is a process for municipalities to work with the state to allow cullings. People can also apply for nuisance deer permits for their own property via the Maine Warden Service.
Faulkingham said the deer hunting ban came when a man from another state had people hunting deer on his summer estate, and he had the state law passed.
Webb said that the present ban was implemented by the 85th Legislature, and that a reference to a closed season on deer on MDI first appeared in 1931. Some island residents — whether seasonal or year-round, he wasn’t sure — were opposed to deer hunting due to proximity to the park, safety concerns and desire to ensure tranquility on the island, he said.
“Efforts to open the island to deer hunting have occurred periodically,” Webb said.
Previously and historically, island towns that wanted to allow deer hunting have been unable to find a path forward. By law, Webb said that his department is prohibited from opening deer hunting in towns that are closed if the towns do not support that opening.
State law specifies that although the commissioner can open a closure, the body of each town has to approve that first.
At least 22 members of the public have sent in written testimony about Faulkingham’s bill, with arguments both for and against it. Others objected to the speed of the process, lack of involvement and notice to island towns, and the fact that it wasn’t an elected official from Mount Desert Island that had brought it before the Legislature.
Anne Swann of Bar Harbor, who also has property in Tremont, urged against passing the bill. She said residential property in the area was dense and not safe to discharge a firearm. She also said that the deer population was locally known to be stable.
Jayne Ashworth of Tremont also urged the committee to not support the bill because none of its sponsors live on the island.
Bar Harbor’s Anna Durand said that while she “Loves venison and hates Lyme disease and deer in her garden, the risk is not worth the benefit.” She also urged consultation with towns.
George Sanker of Bass Harbor said he lives on Mount Desert Island because of its hunting laws and because of Acadia National Park.
“Four million people, many, if not most, families with children, visited MDI and Acadia last year. The last thing these people came to see are once beautiful white-tailed deer dead and bloodied in the back of a pick-up truck,” Sanker wrote. “If you are really concerned about cars striking deer, which I doubt, then lower the speed limit on the island to a maximum of 40 mph.”
He also said that even if all the deer on MDI were killed, he didn’t believe it would make a dent in Lyme disease, citing deer culling in Massachusetts, where a majority of the herd was killed and the number of infections did not decrease.
“So please, take your bloodlust elsewhere and leave MDI as the spectacular and beautiful sanctuary it is for its wildlife, its residents, and the millions of people who visit every year,” he wrote.
Tremont Select Board member Kevin Buck said that he was disappointed that a legislator who wasn’t a representative of the island towns was sponsoring a bill impacting those towns.
“Like Tremont, none of the others have received so much as a heads up. None have been asked how this would affect them,” Buck wrote. “Even further insult is added by having a public hearing scheduled in such a quick fashion that it isn’t possible for towns to hold local discussion about the bill due to public notice requirements and meeting schedules.”
Buck added, “Keeping our towns from voicing concerns over breaking with over a century of tradition and suddenly allowing potentially hundreds of strangers with high powered weapons to wander around unsupervised is extremely troubling.”
Tremont Town Manager Jesse Dunbar requested the committee delay the bill’s passing and said the town is not currently taking a position for or against the bill, saying that each island town needs a “fair opportunity to bring the matter before its governing board, consider the potential impacts, and engage with the public.”
Concerns about the process were echoed by Rep. Holly Rae Eaton, D-Deer Isle, who said that she and other area lawmakers were not consulted. Current law, she stressed, already allows municipalities to lift the ban on deer hunting.
Dean Barrett of Addison wrote that there should be some measures in place to allow deer hunting on the island. Tremont’s Ellen Church agreed, as did Michael Crepps of Southwest Harbor, who was particularly in favor of bow hunting.
Emily Beck of Seal Cove supported the bill, though she is not a hunter or “a fan of hunting generally.” She said the deer population was out of control and needed thinning.
“Here in Seal Cove, there is a herd of nine deer who wander around our property for several hours almost every day,” she wrote. “They are impervious to virtually any effort to drive them away, including a maniacally barking dog. The ticks [there] are an uncontrollable menace.”
She, like many testifying, has had Lyme disease or worried about Lyme disease and habitat stress due to the grazing by what Bar Harbor’s Dennis Bracale called “one of the most efficient herbivores.”
However, Beck’s property was also the location of a deer poaching incident. The hunter cut off the head and left the body on their land. A neighbor heard the shot during the night and alerted game wardens.
“My husband and I not only found the incident gruesome but personally threatening to know that an intruder was walking around our property using a gun in the dark,” she wrote.
Ashley Witkowski of Southwest Harbor agreed that the deer were expanding and a nuisance and supported the bill.
“Since 2019, we have sent in about five ticks per year for testing, all of them found on us after playing in our yard,” Witkowski wrote. “Long gone are the days of walking barefoot in our yard. My children actually now refuse to play in our yard at all due to it being a constant minefield of deer droppings, no matter how much we try to keep on top of cleaning it all up.”
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.
