© 2024 Maine Public | Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

Bar Harbor Voters to Decide Whether to Lift 80-Year-Old Deer Hunting Ban

Coolstock
/
Wikimedia Commons

BAR HARBOR, Maine - On Nov. 4, residents of Bar Harbor will go to the polls to decide whether to overturn an 80-year-old ban on deer hunting. A task force put together to address a recent rise in complaints over nuisance deer is recommending a pair of firearms seasons, followed by a regular bow hunting season.  But the issue is proving to be a controversial one.  And in this community known for its well-heeled folks "from away," people on both sides of the issue say a persistent rural-urban divide may be adding a layer of complexity.  

 

First a little history: MDI's ban on hunting was implemented by the 85th Maine Legislature back in 1931. According to a United Press newspaper article from March 4 that year, it all came about when Edsel Ford, John D. Rockefeller Jr. and other "wealthy residents" of the island petitioned Hancock Sen. H. L. McLean and Bar Harbor Rep. Norman Shaw, to introduce a bill that would enact a perpetual ban on deer hunting for MDI.

The article goes on to say that while the "rocky heavily timbered island affords excellent deer hunting" the town's wealthy residents complained that the previous season, "hunters blazed away at everything that moved and considerable blue blood was in danger of being spilled."  

Reading between the lines, proponents of the hunt say, little has changed, and public comments point to a pocket of cultural resistance to the very notion of hunting. "That's the heart of it," says Tom Schaeffer. "They think Bar Harbor's a special place. They say Bar Harbor is different. I think really what's represented here is a people's resistance to change."

Schaeffer is the regional biologist for the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department's Downeast Division.  He says he's aware that many people on MDI have their roots elsewhere, and view the island as something of a personal haven. But he was still surprised by the depth of feeling displayed at a recent public hearing - surprised, he says, because the task force was formed in response to resident complaints about deer. And he says more than half of those responding to a survey reported having problems with deer - such as deer in gardens and deer in roadways.

While MDI's deer population seems healthy and has not overrun its habitat, says Schaeffer, the task force found that it might have reached what they're calling "social carrying capacity" - or more simply put, the limit on how many deer people are willing to put up with.

"And if the public does not want to change that, then I would predict that at some point, reasonably, they are going to have to deal with a continuation of car-deer incidents and property damage," he says.
 

Credit Coolstock / Wikimedia Commons
Retired farmer Harry Owen, who is against lifting the ban.

And these are the kinds of issues that came up 80 years ago as well. While the measure proved to be popular with the area's businessmen and so-called "blue-bloods"  it wasn't so popular with farmers. The Salisbury Cove grange hall protested the law, saying farmers should have a right to protect their crops from grazing animals.

That's similar to what today's hunting proponents are contending, says Harry Owen, a retired farmer who, at nearly 90, is older than the law itself - and very much against lifting the ban. "A lot of it has to do with the deer getting into gardens, eating shrubbery and eating flowers," he says.

But dealing with animals is just a natural part of farming and gardening, says Owen. While proponents of the deer hunt say they suspect a culturally-urban philosophy is driving the anti-hunting sentiment, Owen says he thinks it's actually the other way around. The real issue, he says, is suburban and city people not understanding that when you move to a rural state you have to learn to live with wildlife.

"We co-habitate with the deer here," Owen says. "The deer were here before we were. I think they have more right to be here than we do."

And, says Owen, people need to shoulder their part of the blame for road accidents with deer: Drivers routinely break the speed limit, he says, and fail to pay attention when they drive the island's back roads.  

But there's another aspect at play that wasn't a factor when the Legislature discussed the issue in 1931.

"The scientific connection between deer numbers, tick numbers, and human cases of Lyme disease is extremely strong," says Robert Burgess, a scientific researcher who sits on the Bar Harbor Deer Herd Control task force.

Burgess says it's not known how many people on the island have developed Lyme disease in recent decades, but anecdotally, he says cases seem to be on the rise. And the research he's seen on Lyme disease should, by itself, be a compelling reason to keep the island's herd in check. "If you reduce the deer, you reduce the number of ticks, and if you reduce the number of ticks, you reduce the transmission of Lyme disease to people," Burgess says.

But opponents of lifting the ban, aren't buying that. The so-called deer tick that causes Lyme disease has been found on more than 120 different species, they say, not just deer, and there's no evidence that culling deer will make people safer. What reducing the deer population will do, they say, is give visitors less of a chance to see one.

"The deer are the moose of Mount Desert Island," says Michael Good, a biologist, hunter, and registered Maine Guide. Good says the idea of preserving the island as a sanctuary for deer was a smart one on the part of the 85th Maine Legislature, a move which has served to support one of the state's most buoyant and iconic tourist destinations for the last 80 years.

"These creatures, when they're seen by the public, are a great sense of joy and excitement and accomplishment that they've seen a wild animal," Good says. "You know, in this Disneyland World that we live, a place like this is vitally important."

But Tom Schaeffer, with Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, says if the task force survey is anything to go by, the hunting measure has strong - although perhaps more silent - support among Bar Harbor's voters.  

But it's not the first time the issue has been raised on MDI; a similar measure failed several years ago in the town of Mount Desert. And he says the two other MDI towns, Southwest Harbor and Tremont, are likely watching to see how the measure will go down in Bar Harbor on Nov. 4.