At the Tremont Select Board’s May 5 meeting, members met with Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife regional biologist Steve Dunham and Maine State Rep. Mike Lance, R-Paris, via Zoom to discuss options for allowing deer hunting in town, even though it’s long been off-limits on Mount Desert Island.
This conversation was in response to the introduction of LD 1438 by Maine Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, which would have legalized the hunting of deer on MDI but failed to make it out of committee.
Dunham is the regional wildlife biologist for IF&W’s zone C, which includes MDI, and Lance is on the Legislature’s advisory committee for the agency. They had both been invited to attend the May 5 meeting by Tremont Town Manager Jesse Dunbar.
If the proposed bill had passed, it would have legalized deer hunting on MDI at the state level, but the state does not have the right to open up individual municipalities to hunting unless a municipality approves it.
By the end of the May 5 meeting, the board had tasked Dunbar with looking into four possible options for a deer hunt in the town.
— Expanded archery: This would be part of the state’s regular hunting season and would require the least amount of work and planning on the town’s part. It would not require the IF&W committee’s approval unless it was a special hunt outside of the state’s normal deer hunting/expanded archery season.
— Resident only: This would require a plan to be put together by the town and presented to the IF&W committee for possible approval.
— Limited license group: This would require a plan to be put together by the town and presented to the IF&W committee for possible approval. The limited license group would most likely be some entity that has agreed to be in control of the hunt and be morally and ethically conscious and strictly follow hunting laws and private property access rules.
— Hired hunt: This would be the hiring of a private company or U.S. Department of Agriculture hunters to thin out the deer herd.
Two days after that May 5 Select Board meeting, on May 7, the IF&W advisory committee met and cast a unanimous vote of “ought not to pass,” killing the legislation at the committee level. Despite that, Tremont is still investigating possible limited hunting scenarios to try and thin out the deer herd for public safety and nuisance reasons.
During the May 19 meeting, the Select Board engaged in conversation regarding possible scenarios but ultimately decided to save the more in-depth conversation and possible decision-making for a meeting when all of the board members are present.
One idea that appeared to meet general consensus, although no action was taken, was to rule out the hired hunt option.
A more popular option, the expanded archery hunt, comes with a major concern. Because the expanded archery season is part of the state’s normal hunting season, if the town was to vote it in as a legal local hunting option, there would be no easy or efficient manner to end the hunt.
However, the town could present a more advanced version of the expanded archery hunt that provides a “sunset provision” as part of the plan, and if that was approved by the IF&W legislative committee, that would allow the town to run the hunt as a trial period.
Thurlow commented that he has spoken with a number of community members who are avid hunters, and even they are leery of opening up any sort of hunt in town due to land issues — namely trespassing and proximity to Acadia National Park — and safety concerns.
There was also discussion regarding a limited license group, but that would require an immense amount of planning. The town would need to find a designated group and come up with a very specific plan to present to the IF&W Committee. It is a viable option, but there are a lot of questions to be answered first.
One of those questions is what would happen to the culled deer. In order to make a difference in the herd, a large number of deer would have to be culled and the Select Board does not want a wasted deer resource situation in terms of usable food. That raises other questions, including who would pay to have the deer butchered, whether there are enough volunteers to handle the processing of harvested deer, and whether any food pantries would be interested in participating either through volunteerism or by fund donations in exchange for meat that they can give to their customers.
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.
