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For a number of years, Eastport residents have been debating the question of whether the island's deer population is too large and should be thinned out. On November 3 they will be able to weigh in with their opinions, as voters will be asked in a straw poll during the general election whether they believe the current deer density is a concern and whether they support having the city work with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IFW) to explore management strategies to reduce the population by additional hunting effort. At present, the only hunting of deer allowed on the island is the bowhunting of bucks during the regular archery season for the month of October.
Eastporters' feelings about the deer run the gamut from their enjoyment watching them and their desire to feed them so they won't starve during the winter months, to anger about the abuses by bowhunters, to exasperation about the property damage caused by the deer and the potential risks they create for accidents and the spread of Lyme disease.
A gardener's lament
Judy Ayres and her late husband Frank have had a North End garden for nearly 40 years, with an electric fence for perhaps 20 years, and have not had problems with deer until recently. Different people suggested ways to deter them, including Irish Spring soap on poles or foil with peanut butter on the fence, so the deer are momentarily zapped. But "this year they were jumping over the fence!" she says, with the deer bounding over the five-foot-high fence at night. Beginning a litany of the vegetable rows, she laments, "They ate the string beans, they ate the Swiss chard, they ate the beets." She went to Wadsworth's and bought a spray to deter them that she sprayed on every row of plants, which did help. But if it rained she had to spray again.
She and her daughter also placed all of the lawn furniture around the garden and took fallen tree limbs to form a barricade. "It looked like we were ready for war," she recalls, declaring, "It's absolutely getting out of hand."
"You go to the trouble of buying the vegetable seeds, you go to the trouble of watering them and nurturing them," and then in one night, as she notes happened to another gardener on the island, the garden can be completely wiped out. "It's been the worst summer," she reflects.
"People feeding them think they're doing a good thing. This island is too small for the amount of deer on the island." She points out that the does were having triplets this summer, and there are no natural predators. She adds that those people who are feeding the deer "will have to double up this winter, because I bet there are 100 more babies."
"I'm a taxpayer as well as the people feeding the deer, and I have rights, too." Emphasizing each word, she states, "It is out of control. The city has to do something."
While having a few deer on the island when they first came here was great, she says, "A few deer are now in the hundreds."
Next year she'll try an electric fence that will be 10 feet high to see if that keeps them out, but she notes of her chances of winning the ongoing battle, "They're evolving. They're learning."
Saving the deer in winter
Down in South End, Sherm Camick shares a different view. "I think it's a wonderful thing, how nice it is to see a wild animal like that around town." He notes that the other day some people drove up from Cutler just to see the deer. "They're a wonderful asset to the town." Of how comfortable the deer have become with people, he notes that one person who's been feeding them placed a doughnut in his mouth and the deer ate the doughnut.
Camick, who likes to hunt upcountry, comments, "I can't believe a hunter would kill a tame animal like that. He's not much of a hunter." He adds, "No real hunter would shoot a tame deer."
For the past two winters he's been feeding a buck that first came by when it was a fawn. "I honestly think he would come right in the house if I'd let him. He'd come right up the stairs," he says. "I'd hate to think someone would shoot it after I fed it with corn all winter." Last winter he says he helped saved 35 deer that came by almost daily.
"There's nothing for them to eat all winter," he says of the deer, adding, "They've cut the trees all off the island." Camick has been feeding them for perhaps 10 years, even when times are tight for him in the winter. "I try to keep feeding them just to save their life," he says. "I hope they're not going to legalize it to shoot all those tame deer."
Camick is not the only Eastporter feeding the deer. Greg Newcomb of Newcomb's Gun and Saddle Shop in Perry says that over a two-week period during the winter months he will sell up to two tons of corn and deer feed to Eastport residents who are feeding deer. "I'd rather see someone feed them than have them starve to death," he comments.
'A cruel sport'
Up on Kendall's Head, Scott Emery reflects, "Some people like them and some people hate them." While he believes they should be thinned out some, he comments there's "a good way and a bad way. I don't want an expanded archery season." He feels bowhunting is "a cruel sport," with deer "running around with arrows sticking out of them. If they don't drop, they [the hunters] just try to find another." He believes that people would feel differently about bowhunting if they saw a deer "with an arrow stuck through it." He says most every year he has problems with bowhunters, with them sometimes riding by and shouting obscenities at him as he's standing in his dooryard. He believes that most of the bowhunters don't obtain landowner permission to hunt and notes that some also hunt from the road, which is illegal. "It's out of control," he says of the bowhunting. If they obtain landowner permission and go in the woods with a tree stand to shoot a deer, that would be all right, he says.
Emery believes that feeding deer, which he does, is a personal choice, and he notes that people in neighboring towns feed deer to help them get through the winter. "A lot of people enjoy them."
As for car/deer accidents, he's had close calls himself when a deer has jumped out, but he believes that if the speed limits were enforced and people were not texting while driving and were staying aware of their surroundings there would be fewer accidents.
Eastport Police Chief Frances LaCoute reports that there have already been 19 car/deer accidents in Eastport so far this year. From the first 15 accidents, the damage to vehicles exceeded $40,000 and all but three of the deer died or had to be killed. So far, drivers and passengers have not sustained any serious injuries.
During one of her early morning drives from the police station, down through South End and out Staniels Road LaCoute counted 57 deer. She notes, "And there are a lot more I don't see." She has counted 20 eating at one apple tree and 14 bucks at one time, noting that there is one "very skittish" 10- or 12-point prize buck.
"People leave food out for them all the time," the police chief points out, with one person feeding them out of her window. "They're cute, but you shouldn't do that."
IFW opposes supplemental feeding of deer
Tom Schaeffer, the regional wildlife biologist for the Downeast region for IFW, outlines that there are two different factors to weigh when considering whether the deer population is too large: the public's tolerance for the deer population, referred to as the social carrying capacity, and the biological carrying capacity, which is the maximum population size that the environment can sustain indefinitely. If deer are seen eating food that is not normally nutritious or palatable for them and if they are showing signs of poor physical condition, then the habitat is becoming stressed, and the deer will suffer. Schaeffer notes, though, that coastal communities can withstand high densities of deer, since they generally have a milder climate and the snowpack is less. Also, the intertidal area can provide a source of food.
After having numerous discussions with city officials over the past eight to 10 years, he observes that while some Eastport residents feel there are too many deer, others feed them and want to protect them. Schaeffer says the department is opposed to the feeding of any wildlife, including deer. "We'd rather see their habitat in a healthy condition," he says, noting that deer are wild animals that are meant to be foraging, "not with their head down in a feeding trough or their nose in a grain bucket."
Supplemental feeding makes them vulnerable to harassment by other animals such as dogs and increases the chance of transmission of diseases. A couple of years ago, deer that were being fed grain in Princeton ended up becoming sick from acidosis, which can cause death. If deer cluster at feeding areas, they can attract natural predators and they also are placed at greater risk of being killed on roads. Substantial losses caused by deer crossing roads have been seen in the Downeast area, he points out.
Among the risks that are increased by a high deer population are the potential for property damage to gardens, ornamental flowers and vehicles, which can include personal injury. There is also a growing concern about the expansion of the range of the deer tick, which is now in Washington County and which increases people's vulnerability to contracting Lyme disease.
Options weighed
While there are a number of deer control strategies, Schaeffer says IFW would prefer allowing a number of any-deer permits in Wildlife Management District 27, which covers coastal Washington County. "It's been bucks only for 25 years," he says, but he notes that there are a number of areas in the district where there have been deer nuisance complaints. While last fall IFW had been considering allowing the killing of does in the district, the heavy snowpack last winter caused the department to pull back and not issue the any-deer permits. "It was unfortunate for Eastport," as it delayed any action for another year. Schaeffer believes the issuance of just five any-deer permits, which allows the permit-holder to take does by firearms or archery, could be sufficient to control the population. The department would then need to encourage hunters to focus on shooting does.
Another option could be to allow a special reduction effort, but Schaeffer says that "is not a card on the table now." IFW would need to exhaust all other regulatory means first before permitting such an effort.
The department also could allow an expanded archery season, so that instead of just lasting through October it would extend from September through the first two weeks of December. The expanded season would allow for bowhunting of anterless deer and for unlimited permits, which would help cull the doe population. However, Schaeffer says, "The most straightforward approach is to issue some permits for does in District 27."
If the deer population continues to grow on the island, Schaeffer says the risks include the introduction of parasites and disease and greater damage to their habitat. The biological carrying capacity can then become so low that it cannot withstand even a minimal deer population density if the habitat is to recover. Schaeffer says, "Our charge is we want to maintain wildlife populations so they're in balance with their habitat." |
