Maine Hunters Getting Short End Of Stick When It Comes To Hunting Opportunities

Hunters pay their share in fees and take to the woods. For most, their aim is to bag a deer (pun intended). Whether a hunter is searching for that “trophy” (it’s often all in one’s perspective) or simply “meat hunting”, all are seeking an “opportunity”. There are some species of game we hunt where opportunity is limited. In other words, game officials determine to what extent a certain species can yield in a harvest and still fall within the guidelines and goals of each species’ management plans. This limitation is most often seen in lottery type permits issuance. Maine as an example, has the moose hunt. Only a specified number of permits are issued and to have a chance at receiving a permit, a hunter must enter a lottery.

It is not often that we see this kind of restricted opportunity with deer hunting. In Maine’s case we are now seeing reductions in opportunity as the deer herd has pretty much disappeared in portions of the state. In Northern Maine, the shooting of female deer is now forbidden and there is talk of shortening the hunting season in those areas or perhaps even a complete closure. This of course means lost opportunities for hunters. When those opportunities are gone, so is revenue to the fish and game agencies that depend on that money to operate. This is why fish and game hates to restrict hunter opportunities and they should realize that when there is no game, interest drops as well.

So what is stealing your opportunities?

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. There are many people out there today – environmentalists, animal rights groups and anti hunting organizations (some may be hiding at your local fish and game department) – that could care less about your hunting opportunities. Under the guise of “protecting” wildlife, their agendas all too often put into peril the very species they claim to be wanting to protect, which of course makes us question their motives.

Most state fish and game departments manage game animals for surplus populations because their mandate is to provide hunting opportunities. Some states aren’t too concerned about providing enough deer to hunt but instead are trying to come up with creative ways to reduce herds down to healthy levels. Maine is not such a state, at least not in Northern, Eastern and the Western Mountain regions.

I have repeated over and over that deer management is a very complicated issue, one that I don’t pretend to be an expert in and one that I wish those who claim to be experts at, would admit they don’t understand or have all the answers.

I would like to make an attempt at explaining my interpretation of hunting opportunities – what creates them and who or what steals them away.

Maine is a unique geographical region in that we often discuss Maine as being two states – the northern two-thirds and the lower one third. This follows the civilian population but also the same can be said about the weather. The Northern two-thirds of the state is much of the area where the deer herd is dwindling away to nothing, leading some biologist to believe it is unfeasible to try to manage a whitetail deer herd there. It is in this northern area that I would like to focus on for this article. I also want to attempt to keep this as simple as possible and yet acknowledge the unknown and complex factors not covered.

If the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is managing whitetail deer populations for surplus to provide hunting opportunities for Maine residents (which I believe they are), this means they have to manage or control as much as they can. In other words, they can’t control the weather but they can control how many and of what sex deer get taken in the annual harvest. When herds are struggling, as is the case in Northern Maine, efforts must increase to protect deer, perhaps in ways they have never had to in the past.

I was rereading and reviewing “White-Tailed Deer Population Management System And Database” by Gerald R. Lavigne. There is a section in there that deals some with deer mortality and how this is effected by severe winters.

We have all heard more than we want to about how it’s been the past couple of winters that has destroyed the deer herd. There’s no argument from me on that. What I will question is whether MDIFW really has a grip on the other factors that cause deer mortality.

Deer mortality is quite simple really. Just imagine all things that cause the death of a deer; natural, legal hunting, poaching, run over by car, becoming prey to such things as bear, coyote, bobcat, etc., disease, etc. etc. MDIFW has a system in place that accurately tracks the number of deer killed and tagged during the hunting season. Everything else is merely an educated guess based on many things of which I won’t try to explain because I don’t understand all of them.

On pages 31 and 34 of “White-Tailed Deer Management…….”, Lavigne provides some interesting pie graphs to help explain what might happen under certain conditions dealing with severe winters. First let me explain some of the terms Lavigne uses.

All-Cause Mortality – I think we have hit on that one pretty good above.
Fawn Recruitment Rate – How many deer born in the spring that survive heading into the fall hunt in November. This doesn’t tell us how many fawns were born only how many survived for that length of time. I believe in Maine this observation is undertaken in August. Fawn recruitment is generally recorded and utilized as a rate. That rate is determined by the number of fawns that survived per 100 adult does. If there are 75 fawns per 100 adult does, then the recruitment rate = 0.75. You may have also heard in your travels someone talking about what the fawn recruitment rate needs to be to sustain a deer herd or some other ungulate game animals, i.e. moose, elk, etc. This rate is highly variable depending on several conditions.
Winter Severity Index- MDIFW has devised a formula from data collected over many years, where they can attach an indexed number to how bad a winter was. They use this index to help determine winter mortality. This is factored into the All-Cause Mortality.

The All-Cause Mortality can and does vary much the same as the fawn recruitment rate depending upon certain conditions. Under perhaps “normal” conditions and depending on whether MDIFW is attempting to grow, reduce or maintain a deer population, an All-Cause Mortality might be 30%. This means that over the course of the year, hunting included, the total mortality of a deer herd can’t exceed 30%. If it does, it may mean the population is beginning to shrink.

If the pre-hunt deer population is 300,000 deer and we use Lavigne’s pie charts, we can make some determinations. If we determine that we can allow a 30% all mortality rate on the deer to sustain a population and we calculate in other factors like winter severity, fawn recruitment and others, then MDIFW can estimate that half of that 30% or 15% of the pre-hunt population can be taken by hunters, i.e. 45,000 deer. – your hunting opportunity. (This is all an estimate but I believe a reasonable one.)

Using the same charts, they tell us that this can be done because it is estimated that the winter will account for a reduction of 7% and 8% is attributed to “other”. More on “other” in a moment. This is all based on what MDIFW believes is a Fawn Recruitment Rate of 0.42 – 42 fawns per 100 adult does.

What happens when we begin to vary those percentages? Let’s say the following year the winter was very harsh and MDFW officials determined that it accounted for 15% of an All-Mortality reduction. If all other factors remain the same, then the deer harvest, your hunting opportunity, will have to be reduced by 8% of the total – an allowable harvest of 24,000 deer. Using this pie chart, etc., it becomes much easier to see how winter severity can cut into your hunting opportunity.

What happens if Fawn Recruitment drops significantly? More hunting opportunity is lost. A lower fawn recruitment means fewer deer replenishing the herd. If you are trying to sustain or grow a herd, a drop in fawn recruitment isn’t good. What effects fawn recruitment? Many things including weather – how late spring arrives, predation, habitat, etc.

Let’s now say that it has been determined that fawn recruitment has been dropping the past few years and is now down somewhere around 0.18, a level some say cannot sustain a population. Combine that with two severe winters, a bloated coyote population, a near record breaking population of black bear and basically what you end up with is no hunting opportunity. You may have opportunity but nothing to hunt, as has been the case in parts of Maine the past few years.

With all of these factors, it must be pointed out that the allowable All-Mortality also comes down. If something doesn’t change, not only is hunting opportunity eliminated, but a continued reduction in the deer population spirals downward until it can virtually disappear.

With that understood, then we hunters and MDIFW shouldn’t be discounting ANY factor that can change the makeup of Lavigne’s pie charts. I have read where Maine’s fawn recruitment is very low. Do we have a handle on why that is so? What can we do, other than change the weather, to improve that? Are biologists aware of the fact that the mere presence of predators can cause deer to abort or not conceive at all? Is there the available habitat for does to fawn in, protect and feed their young? We must look at all contributing factors.

The “All Other” part of that pie chart can make up as much as 8% or 10%, perhaps even more. We just don’t know because we don’t closely track this information. “All Other” comprises poaching. What can all of us do about poaching. I think we know the answer to that. There’s also automobile collisions. Can we take a look at where these occur most and make some changes? Are people feeding deer in their back yards causing the death of a few hundred deer because they get run over while crossing the road to get to the feed? Do we need better signage and education to get drivers to slow down and be aware when in deer crossing zones?

“All Other” includes predation. Why isn’t the MDIFW going to up the black bear kill to cut down on bear predation? The same can be asked of moose? Not from predation but from competition for food.

All of these little things contribute to the reduction of your hunting opportunities and none of them should be taken lightly. We have a situation where we question whether a herd can be rebuilt. Every little factor can help.

However, this is really dependent upon whether Maine hunters, MDIFW and the state as a whole, really think it is worth managing Northern Maine for deer. Some don’t think it is. Some believe to increase bear and moose hunting opportunities is the way to go. It’s your investment and your hunting opportunities. It’s up to you to do something about it.

Tom Remington

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Hubert Todd: 27-Point Texas Buck

Story here!

Tom Remington

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Dude! Is This A Freak Buck Or What?

I have one report that this deer weighed 440 pounds before it was field dressed. Is this a hunting ranch deer?

Update: Well, seems via some searching on the part of readers, we’ve discovered this “trophy” deer picture on a website that shows the game farm and preserve where the deer was taken.

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Maine’s Vanished Deer Herd: “Fact Finding”

This is another in a series of responses to George Smith’s email about the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine’s (SAM) commitment to seek action in stopping the further demise of Maine’s deer herd and attempts to restore it back to something sustainable. Smith is the Executive Director of SAM.

Please find the entire email of Smith’s at this link. I will also attempt to provide all the links to all the articles pertaining to this debate at each of the sites where posted. Yesterday’s response can be found here.

Let me begin this article by first making some general comments about Smith’s and SAM’s efforts, etc. I have been reading George Smith’s recent articles published in newspapers and magazines, along with his blog at the SAM website. I believe he has a pretty good handle on the condition of Maine’s deer herd and the overall atmosphere and attitude of Maine’s angry licensed hunters. I think he also grasps the negative effects the loss of hunting will have on Maine’s economy and private business. I appreciate Smith’s work on this issue.

As pertains to the email I posted previously, I have a couple of comments. I am going to assume that where this email was only a draft to be considered by the Board of Directors for SAM, that what appears in the SAM newsletter may not be exactly the same, although overall content should remain similar.

The second thing I’d like to point out is that most all of what Smith writes is good stuff and should be considered by all of us. My attempt is not to find fault with his information but to expound on it and offer my own perspective and solutions to this sensitive issue. As is always the case, I welcome comments and responses from readers below in the comment section.

As we plod ahead, all ideas and observations need to be explored. A faithful reader on a previous article made a comparison of Homeland Secretary Janet Nepolitano’s comments about the “Pantie Bomber” terrorist and the failure of Maine’s deer management.

Nepolitano’s comment was that the “system” worked. Nobody could understand how the system worked if a terrorist was successful in getting explosives on a plane. The only failure was the “Pantie Bomber’s” inability to detonate the bomb.

The comparison comes when people in Maine begin saying the system of whitetail deer management works. If the “system” had worked, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. That doesn’t however mean we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It simply means some things need to change.

So, let’s further examine the ideas suggested and see if we can expand on those and make the process work better.

“Fact Finding” – Smith offers that fact finding “need not take long”. I can’t say that I agree with that sentiment.

Job one is to fully understand the facts of this situation. Many are casting blame in all directions. It’s time to step back and gather all available facts. This need not take long. We look to landowner organizations like the Maine Forest Products Council and to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife for the information needed to properly assess the situation. I’ve already learned a lot in meeting with these interests over the past few weeks. We’re not looking to cast blame. But we must know as much as possible about the situation.

The information needed includes: 1) an evaluation of the system of voluntary deer wintering area management agreements between DIF&W and large landowners, and LURC zoned deer yards; 2) a report on the amount and quality of deer wintering habitat now available in the unorganized territories on private and public land; 3) an evaluation and explanation of the 2009 deer season including harvest and license sales; 4) an accurate estimate of the current deer population by WMD; 5) an explanation of the major challenges in restoring deer numbers to DIF&W’s population goals for each WMD.

He begins well by saying that we all need to fully understand, stop casting blame and gather all available facts. What I am troubled with is it appears Smith believes the fact finding mission is easy and tells us from what sources we should get our facts from.

In yesterday’s article, I expressed real concern about the need to be all inclusive, that every licensed hunter in the state is a stakeholder. They are a source as well.

I don’t believe Smith is suggesting that the Maine Forest Products Council (MFPC) and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) are the only places we should get facts from. However, we can’t imply this either. From experience I can tell you that anytime I employ MDIFW data in support of my statements, it doesn’t always carry a lot of credibility. It should but it doesn’t. More on this in a bit.

If Smith is honest, and I believe he is, that “we better be together on this”, then we need to look out beyond just MDIFW, MFPC and the Small Woodlot Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM), for facts. The best way I know of to be all inclusive is to not disregard somebody’s ideas but to be receptive and eager to hear and understand everyone’s frustrations. We all can learn a lot from those angry hunters.

It’s easier to collect information and responses from known entities, often by overlooking each individual hunter. That is a fact of how things operate and I’m not suggesting it should change or is wrong. I mention it because I think hunters need to find or formulate a local sporting club, get involved and become a very loud voice in the game management process. It’s your money and investment we’re discussing here.

Smith goes on to explain what he thinks the “information” needs to be. It would have been better had he added just a few words to his opening paragraph. He said, “The information needed includes:”. This would have been much more effective it had read, “The information needed includes, among other things – a list that will grow as we reach out to all concerned:”

Five items are listed. You can read them above. The list is good but incomplete. Troubling again is the fact that the information being sought comes from government agencies only – MDIFW amd Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC). We shouldn’t disregard this information but once again, the system isn’t working the way hunters want it nor is it meeting the goals of the Maine Deer Management Plan. Therefore, something must change. It’s time to consider other ideas, perhaps those not so strongly influenced by politics or job security, etc.

It would appear to me that included in this list should be the following: (Note: Some may perceive this as finger pointing and blaming MDIFW. Not at all. To this point it is only MDIFW “facts” that have fueled the deer management machine. If we are to continue to use MDIFW “fact” then certain questions need to be answered. I am challenging for those answers, seeking honest dialog.)

1). What is MDIFW’s official statement about the impact of large predators on Maine’s deer herd. Hunters in Maine aren’t interested in what is written in outdated studies from coyotes that don’t share the same habits and characteristics as Maine’s larger coyote – more than likely a hybrid of wolf and coyote. Maine outdoor writer Bob Humphrey wrote in an earlier article that an MDIFW report done in 1995 stated that coyotes accounted for 30% of deer loss statewide. Is this accurate information? Is there more updated data?

We hear from some at MDIFW that coyote depredation on deer is insignificant. This information suggests otherwise and as Humphrey begged the question, what is that mortality rate in places like Northern Maine where the deer numbers are down around extirpation levels?

Some honesty would go along ways here. If MDIFW’s official position is they aren’t concerned about coyotes, which appears to be their position, then Maine hunters want to know precisely what that is being based upon other than worn out and unproven rhetoric.

2). Would MDIFW please tell licensed hunters in Maine exactly how terrified they are of dealing with lawsuits from animal rights groups, environmentalists and anti-hunting groups? Maine hunters want the truth about how much time and expense this is costing us and exactly how much effect this has had on their ability to properly manage the deer herd? We know that it has had some effect because the most effective means of trapping coyotes around winter deer yards was taken away from us via lawsuits.

3). How much of Maine’s licensed deer hunters’ money is going to pay for non-game programs at MDIFW? Along with that cost analysis could we also be given an evaluation of how taking license fee money away from game management has hindered the ability of MDIFW to properly manage the deer herd and other game species.

4). Could Maine hunters get a breakdown of how much of their dollars goes toward search and rescue? And at the same time could we have an evaluation of how the loss of those dollars shifted to search and rescue has hindered the MDIFW’s ability to manage the deer herd and other game species properly.

I think you are getting my point. We are hearing and have heard for some time how that a lack of resources has kept MDIFW from doing the job they would like to do. My contention is that the lack of resources is the result of MDIFW, either willingly or forcibly, shifting dollars and manpower away from game management and into non-game programs. With a reduction of license dollars going toward good deer herd management and no income coming back to MDIFW from non-game beneficiaries, how can MDIFW properly manage Maine’s deer herd?

Remember, it’s Maine’s license buyers who fund MDIFW. Also realize that all employees of MDIFW are not hunters. It would naive to think that all employees at MDIFW are looking out for the best interest of hunters. Hunter’s interest headed south as soon as Maine fish and game became MDIFW, whose job it became to do many things not at all related to hunting, fishing and trapping.

Let’s keep going!

5). Could someone, anyone, please come up with an explanation as to how Maine’s Any-Deer Permit system works? I have tried as I’m sure many others have but it is next to impossible to convince licensed Maine hunters, especially angry ones with no deer to hunt.

While I’ve only scratched the surface, my contention still remains that fact finding will take a long time if this is to be done right. My facts don’t necessarily mean George Smith’s facts, or MDIFW’s facts. Maine hunters need convincing the source of these facts is reliable. That’s the task we face. How do we do that? If we can’t convince the angry hunters about our “facts”, I question how much success this effort will realize.

Being honest would be a great place to start. We all make mistakes. MDIFW has made some mistakes. They do a lot of good things but when something goes this awry, it’s time for adjustments. What better way to make those adjustments than done through honest dialog. Making excuses is just as bad as pointing a finger.

I suggest we take a deep breath for a second. We know that the longevity to a structure is a great foundation. I believe the foundation to “effective action”, as Smith calls it, is an honest and complete compilation of all the facts, not just the same one’s from the same sources. If we can build the best foundation possible, that meets the standards of all licensed hunters, putting in place an “effective action” will be made much simpler.

There is one other issue that needs mentioning and one that I hope doesn’t become lost in the rush to “effective action”. MDIFW can’t get a free pass on this. It appears to me they are too eager to pass the responsibility off on SAM and/or anybody else willing to take up the flag. We paid our fees and expected game management in return. Most are not satisfied with that effort.

Smith says we all need to step up and be responsible. I concur but not in order to give MDIFW a free pass. If they have forgotten who pays their bills, we need to rattle their cage. If we, the angry hunter, have to go about managing our own game, then maybe it’s time to dismantle and seriously downsize the fish and game department.

The managerial operation and structure of MDIFW comes from the governor and legislature on down. Remember that next time you go to vote.

Tom Remington

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Stepping Up To Help Maine’s Deer Herd Could Get Bogged Down In Politics

I recently posted the thoughts and ideas of George Smith, Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, in his quest to save and/or rebuild a large portion of Maine’s whitetail deer population that is dismal and described as some as beyond rebuilding.

While the debate on that subject is young and in need of “help” from “everyone”, I thought as one of every I would offer up my own thoughts in response to Smith’s.

There’s a big rub that exists when talking about the deer herd in Maine. That rub is the dissatisfaction of the Maine hunter who buys the license. Hunters want action not another effort of gathering together stakeholders to rehash what most already know. They don’t see any of the previous efforts put forth as amounting to anything. Why would it be different now?

Can we blame the disgruntled hunters for feeling this way? The deer are gone and what the hunters are getting is more blaming of bad winters and cut down forests. They are tired of hearing about these excuses and they want action. Calling together all the same components of what to hunters looks like failed policies and poor management, isn’t going over big at all. That’s a wall that needs dismantling.

Smith says early on in his piece that a process has to be followed or the consequences could be more harmful than helpful.

Effective action follows understanding follows fact finding.

I wonder if the “facts” will come mostly from the same source of “facts” that has gotten us to the point we are in now? The most important fact is that the deer herd in depleted in certain areas of the state. A fact is what has taken place, whether natural or man made hasn’t worked. A fact is maybe it’s time to find some “different” facts.

I’m not suggesting anyone is insane, but the definition of such is a repetition of the same action hoping for a different result. Sanity tells us if the repetition isn’t working, perhaps we need to change something. We cannot pretend to gain an understanding of facts we aren’t convinced accurately describe a situation.

If we are to effect the proper action to achieve an end result, there must be a united effort as Smith suggests. The only way that is going to happen is to convince the disgruntled hunters.

So where are the facts to effect this understanding and action going to come from? The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife? Try telling these angry hunters that MDIFW has the facts. Why should they be believed? Hunters have laid out a lot of money over the years and the results are not very good.

Are we going to believe “facts” from the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine? Some will. Many won’t. Sportsmen are not united on issues and while the SAM is the largest organization representing Maine sportsmen, it doesn’t represent a majority of hunters.

Will “facts” come from guides and outfitters? That’s tough as well. You see we find out that the Maine guides seemed to dictate to MDIFW that they didn’t want more bear harvested as a means of helping to reduce bear predation on deer. It was reported in a previous article on Smith’s blog that MDIFW was simply following the recommendations of the predator working group. It doesn’t sit well with deer hunters when they find a group getting their wishes taken care of at what appears to be the expense of the deer population.

The stakeholders in the issue are everybody who buys a hunting license to hunt deer. Let’s not kid ourselves. The groups are simply a means of gathering more power to promote group agendas, therefore having more influence on game management policies of the MDIFW. I suppose one can either work independently, join an existing group that seems to best represent their ideals or shut up and go away.

Everyone of the groups I’ve mentioned and not mentioned, including the individual deer hunter, plays an important and integral role in deer management in Maine. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and the squeakiest wheel isn’t necessarily a good representation of the hunting population.

Smith’s contention that “Effective action follows understanding follows fact finding” is a good one but each element of that progression has to be done right. The task that lies ahead to gather facts that can be agreed upon by an overwhelming majority of hunters and not just by the “group in charge” is the axis that will make the wheel turn. Once that is achieved, gaining understanding and putting together actions shouldn’t be so difficult.

I believe Smith understands this.

We cannot sugar-coat this situation. Hunters deserve to know the truth. What is the situation? What can we expect in 2010 and the years beyond? What will work? What won’t work? Who is stepping up to help? Who is not? These truths must come from every organization, including landowner groups, SAM, and DIF&W. And we better be together on this. There is simply no room for argument, or a shading of the facts to suit someone’s agenda. SAM seeks a commitment from all major players to both fact finding and truth telling. I am promising you will get nothing but the unvarnished truth from SAM, even if some of it is hard to accept.

My fear is that the “facts” will be repeated from the same sources as before without support and explanation from someone hunters can trust. I don’t know who that is but it might be worthwhile to come up with one, two or three people who can hammer out the “facts” and pass them on to hunters in order to bring them on board.

Smith says, “And we better be together on this”. He’s right but how do we do that? If we can figure that out, the rest should be comparatively easy.

If you hunt and you care about the future of deer hunting in Maine, I would suggest getting involved. How you do that is up to you. I suggested before that perhaps you can find a sportsman’s organization that best fits your ideals. Bear in mind you won’t find a perfect one, just a good one.

You can also become an activists by yourself. Talk to your friends and neighbors about what’s going on with the deer. Help them understand why it is important to everyone that we have a healthy deer herd, a well-managed one that includes predator controls, etc. Do some research on your own seeking the truth about deer management, predator management and landowner rights. Talk to your local game warden. If you can develop a good report with them, they can educated you to a lot of what is going on in your area. Report a poacher.

Do your part as a hunter. If there are too many coyotes in your favorite hunting spot, take up hunting them or find someone who will. Invite a trapper or a coyote hunter to come on your land and do some of your own predator control.

This task will not be easy but sitting idly by complaining isn’t a viable option.

In the future I will examine more of Smith’s ideas as well as those of others and the progress that is being made. Look for updates and links.

More responses: Fact Finding

Tom Remington

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Top Ten Black Bear Blog Stories Of 2009

It’s that time of year once again to recap the year in stories…..that is stories that I believed to be important issues for hunters and outdoor enthusiasts in general. The importance of these events may not be measured in the number of articles written or the extent to which I covered them but more by what I deem to be of primary concern to all outdoors people.

10). Spent Military Brass – It was a short-lived story but one that exemplified the power that exists behind the firearms and ammunition industry in the country – perhaps the last stronghold against the tyrants working to rob us all of our rights.

The U.S. Government sent out a notice that all spent military brass would be destroyed rather than recycled, a move that would have reduced the ability of companies who reload that spent brass, creating a shortage of ammunition to the American people.

For the whole story, start with this link and follow links in the story for updates.

9). Sonia Sotomayor – The appointment of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court holds potential ramifications for all of us. We know that she is a non supporter of Second Amendment rights and has ruled in lower courts that states do not have to abide by federal gun laws, including the Second Amendment.

We may have a chance early in 2010 to see Justice Sotomayor in action as the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, in which the gun ban in that city is being challenged as unconstitutional, much the same way as District of Columbia v. Heller.

For articles pertaining to Justice Sonia Sotomayer, follow this link and scroll through.

8). “To Catch a Wolf” – As many of you know, I spend a great deal of time discussing wolves here at the Black Bear Blog. It’s not so much about some kind of infatuation with the creature as the political ramifications that effect all Americans.

As a bit of a spin off on the sometimes old and tired topic of wolves and other predators and the onset of wolf hunting seasons in Idaho and Montana, I spent a great deal of time reading and researching more of the world wide history of wolves.

This research included not only the struggles people had with wolves throughout history but also the difficulties encountered in trying to hunt and trap these creatures. The stories ranged from unbelievable, to sad due to loss of life.

I thought it only fitting that with wolf hunting seasons scheduled for the first time in 70 or so years in America, that it would be educational to see how wolves were taken care of many years ago.

“To Catch a Wolf” Part I can be read from this link. There you will find links to all five parts.

7). McDonald v. Chicago – While little has been written about McDonald v. City of Chicago, the importance of this future event becomes Chapter II in the interpretation of the Second Amendment. Chapter I of course being District of Columbia v. Heller.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in this case March 2, 2010. Chicago bans guns much the same way that Washington, D.C. did prior to the Heller case. Almost immediately after Heller, a lawsuit was filed challenging the legal right for the City of Chicago to deny its citizens the right to keep and bear arms.

I suspect that this story may make the top ten stories next year. For more on McDonald v. Chicago, follow this link and scroll through the stories.

6). New Jersey Bears – No, this is not a football team. New Jersey hunters and concerned residents have battled the state of New Jersey over the management of its bear population. New Jersey had a bear hunt to help reduce bear numbers and reduce bear/human encounters. When Jon Corzine became governor, he appointed Lisa Jackson to head up his Environmental department. Under Corzine’s direction, she threw away a court-approved bear management plan and banned all bear hunting.

When Barack Obama became president, he appointed the same Lisa Jackson to head the federal environmental department and Governor Corzine was recently defeated in a run for governor and will be leaving office in January.

At this point in time, the citizens of New Jersey can only wonder what will become of the black bears. Fortunately for everyone, bears have slipped away into winter hibernation but come spring, bears will be awakening. How will the new administration handle its bear management?

Follow this link for stories and information on New Jersey bears.

5). Delta Smelt – The delta smelt is what’s wrong with the Endangered Species Act. The ESA was designed to protect an animal or plant species but not at the expense of humans. Water, necessary for growing crops and keeping residents of California employed and fed, has been withheld in order to hopefully protect a tiny fish.

Questions surround whether the efforts being employed are doing anything to protect the smelt while thousands of Californians are out of work and businesses are failing. The withholding of water has caused a man-made drought that now will take years to recover from the damages done.

Read about the delta smelt with this link.

4). Maine’s Deer Problems – The state of Maine has a shortage of whitetail deer in much of the geographic territory of the state. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been quick to blame a couple of bad winters for the problem, but many question whether that’s really it.

Most will admit that loss of habitat and access to hunting grounds has played a role but little attention is directed at a rapidly growing coyote population and the role of other large predators.

Debates are ongoing and actions are lacking but the future of Maine’s whitetail deer remains in the balance. Some have indicated that the vast majority of the northern half of the state can no longer sustain a whitetail deer population and until efforts are made to rebuild wintering deer habitat, it will be decades, if ever, before that happens.

This past year I did a four-part series on Maine’s deer management problem. You can follow this link to Part I. There you will find links to the other parts and also check out the “related articles” links at the bottom of each page.

Other key articles can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

3). Firearms Freedom Act – It all began in Montana. With the support of the Montana Legislature and the signature of the governor, Montana had passed into law a bill that essentially said that any gun or accessory manufactured in Montana and remained in Montana was not subject to federal firearms regulations.

This brings to the forefront the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution and a reclaiming of state sovereignty. The passage of this bill will be challenged, no doubt, but Montana took extraordinary steps seeking the ear of the court and requesting a ruling on their bill.

With the overreaching new Obama administration, many people fear the tyrannical pressures being put on states to relinquish their state powers and sovereignty. This has set off a domino effect and now there are 29 states that have either passed, introduced or are planning to introduce a clone of Montana’s Firearms Freedom Act.

Follow this link for more information on a movement that could have overwhelming implications on all Americans.

2). Wolves – Wolf Delisting, Wolf Hunt, Wolf Disease – The topic of wolves in America remains big and emotional. The reason I continue to focus my efforts on this is because it’s strong political ramifications effect all of us. It challenges the core of the Endangered Species Act, it highlights the hypocrisy of the environmentalists who make their living by suing the federal government, while stealing away Americans rights, it has revealed corruption at many levels and without proper constraints, treads on the very rights of free Americans.

Lawsuits affected the delisting of the wolf but eventually Idaho and Montana, if only temporary, gained custody of wolf management and implemented wolf hunts for the first time in about 70 years. Idaho still has a hunt going on as I write this. Pending lawsuits threaten to once again shut down the wolf hunts and take the management away from the states, allowing wolf numbers to grow unchecked while the people sit by watching their elk, deer and moose herds disappear, while giving livestock owners major headaches.

And if all this wasn’t enough, testing of wolves has revealed the animals are full of worms and are spreading the diseases feared by some and ignored by others, before reintroduction.

It appears there may never be an end to this debate. In the meantime Wyoming has been shut out of the delisting process because of politics being played. Lawsuits are pending for Wyoming as well.

You can spend weeks reading the seemingly unending articles on wolves by following this link.

1). Climate Change/Climategate – Although not everyone will admit it, Climategate may prove to be the biggest revelation not only to the world of climate science but the entire scientific community.

Global warming and its causes have been a hot button topic for several years now. As a matter of fact, it has been around long enough now that a majority of people have been indoctrinated to believe that climate change is the result of the influence of man living on this planet. This indoctrination took place in such a way that by the time the entire scientific community became involved, convincing “believers” that the science wasn’t settled became a daunting task.

Aided now in that effort was what is now becoming apparent a whistle blower’s release of emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that showed fraud, conspiracy and cover-up of scientific data.

Whether you buy into the theory that man’s influence on this planet is warming it or not, or whether you want to believe that the information contained in the emails and documents proves or disproves anything, the fact is that it is quite likely to change how science and specifically scientific research, especially that funded by governments and special interest groups, is conducted and perceived.

For more on Climategate and global warming in general, follow this link.

Tom Remington

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Everyone Must Step Up To Help Maine’s Deer Herd

The other day I received an email from a reader and concerned deer hunter. I was told that it was alright to release the information in that email. Below is a draft of thoughts and ideas on how to move forward on restoring Maine’s depleted deer herd. It was authored by George Smith, Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine.

The draft it appears was emailed to the Board of Directors of SAM and Smith indicates that his board instructed him to prioritize the deer problem. I will copy the proposal below and save comment for a separate post. Once that post is completed, I’ll come back and provide a link to it from here.

Link to related story.

More responses: Fact Finding

~~~~~

SN Jan Deer Solution

Everyone Must Step Up to Help Deer

By George Smith

There is a job for every one of us in the campaign to bring back the deer herd in all regions of the state. SAM intends to lead the campaign. We cannot and will not give up on deer or deer hunters.

Since writing a series of articles on 2009’s dismal deer season, I have been gathering suggestions for all quarters including groups representing landowners, sportsmen, and guides, and from sporting camp owners, SAM members and other sportsmen, and wildlife biologists at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Deer hunters are disappointed and angry. Some are very angry. It is imperative that we act quickly to direct that anger in a positive direction and present credible plans to rebuild the deer herd. Here are the ideas that I think merit consideration.

First, keep this process in mind: Effective action follows understanding follows fact finding. Get this out of order and you could do more harm than good.

Fact Finding

Job one is to fully understand the facts of this situation. Many are casting blame in all directions. It’s time to step back and gather all available facts. This need not take long. We look to landowner organizations like the Maine Forest Products Council and to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife for the information needed to properly assess the situation. I’ve already learned a lot in meeting with these interests over the past few weeks. We’re not looking to cast blame. But we must know as much as possible about the situation.

The information needed includes: 1) an evaluation of the system of voluntary deer wintering area management agreements between DIF&W and large landowners, and LURC zoned deer yards; 2) a report on the amount and quality of deer wintering habitat now available in the unorganized territories on private and public land; 3) an evaluation and explanation of the 2009 deer season including harvest and license sales; 4) an accurate estimate of the current deer population by WMD; 5) an explanation of the major challenges in restoring deer numbers to DIF&W’s population goals for each WMD.

The Truth

We cannot sugar-coat this situation. Hunters deserve to know the truth. What is the situation? What can we expect in 2010 and the years beyond? What will work? What won’t work? Who is stepping up to help? Who is not? These truths must come from every organization, including landowner groups, SAM, and DIF&W. And we better be together on this. There is simply no room for argument, or a shading of the facts to suit someone’s agenda. SAM seeks a commitment from all major players to both fact finding and truth telling. I am promising you will get nothing but the unvarnished truth from SAM, even if some of it is hard to accept.

Coyote Hunting Network

Every Maine hunter should make a commitment to try coyote hunting in 2010.

SAM has made a commitment to aggressively promote coyote hunting. We have already posted a how-to guide on our website and will print it in the January/February 2010 SAM News. It is written by former DIF&W deer biologist Gerry Lavigne, now a consultant to SAM on deer and coyote issues. We are also working with Gerry and URSUS Productions to produce a video with similar information.

Previously we published Gerry’s articles advocating for a Coyote Hunting Network. He has made a compelling case that hunters can reduce coyote populations to a level that will sharply curtail predation on deer.

We have also asked DIF&W to be a full partner with SAM in promoting coyote hunting, through its Information and Education Division. There are other ways DIF&W can help, including gathering bait (from road-kills and other sources) for recreational hunters to use to hunt coyotes.

We are working with the outdoor industry, specifically with guides and sporting camp owners, to promote coyote hunting as an add-on to all other hunts in Maine. Get a bear on your first day? Get back in that stand and shoot coyotes. Done your turkey hunt at noon? Stick around and call in a coyote.

Help the Outdoor Industry

DIF&W should convene a meeting of the key players in the outdoor industry, including the Maine Professional Guides Association, Sporting Camp Owners Association, and Maine Tourism Association, to create a list of actions that can be taken to help those who have been hurt by 2009’s disastrous deer season and by diminished prospects for deer hunting in the north woods for the foreseeable future. SAM will help.

If DIF&W is unwilling to do this, SAM should do it in partnership with the outdoor industry.

I have two suggestions: 1) vastly increase moose hunting opportunities; and 2) aggressively market fishing opportunities for both native brook trout and smallmouth bass.

SAM already took one action to help the industry, asking DIF&W Commissioner Dan Martin and his Advisory Council to reconsider its recent decision to hold a third week of moose hunting in northern Maine in October, and to schedule it in November to help make up for lost deer hunters. Commissioner Martin agreed to do that and the Council will meet on December 22 to act on this request.

Deer Wintering Areas

Fingers are pointing at landowners for cutting deeryards, but there are many deeryards with few or any deer in them. Clearly the problem is more complicated that this. Many elements are at play. Deer wintering areas are one of them. When DIF&W’s Wildlife Division Director Mark Stadler says we do not have sufficient deer wintering habitat, I believe him. SAM’s own deer consultant, Gerry Lavigne, says we need one million more acres of deer wintering habitat.

I also know that some landowners are doing a terrific job of managing deer wintering area, in cooperation with DIF&W and on their own. For example, DIF&W Regional Wildlife Biologist Rich Hoppe reports that he has a great relationship with Irving Woodlands and the company is doing a good job of managing deer wintering habitat. Irving Woodlands manager John Gilbert recently told me that more than nine percent of the company’s extensive land holdings are managed for deer wintering habitat, a very significant commitment from them.

DIF&W’s Director of Resource Management, Dr. Ken Elowe, says on Maine’s two million acres of conservation land, deer wintering habitat management is a top priority. But these areas don’t seem to have any more deer than other areas. We need to know why (see fact finding above).

The Maine Forest Products Council, Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine, and DIF&W have created new guidelines for managing deer wintering habitat, and both MFPC and SWOAM have promised to encourage their members to utilize the guidelines.

SAM is insisting that this new voluntary management system include real accountability. We appreciate the commitment of MFPC and SWOAM to encourage landowners to participate. And we’re especially grateful to those landowners who have already stepped up. We will tell you who those landowners are in the near future.

DIF&W must measure that level of participation and report to all of us on an annual basis. We want to know how much land is being managed for deer wintering area, where that land is, which landowners are participating in the voluntary program, and most importantly, which landowners are not. SAM will praise the participants and get after those who refuse to help.

DIF&W may also need to beef up the state’s deeryard zoning rules, so they can be effectively applied to landowners who refuse to participate in the voluntary program. This stick need never be used. But if it is needed, it ought to be available. The current zoning rules are unworkable, ineffective, and rarely used.

Multi-species Management

Other species are negatively impacting deer. Moose have over browsed the food supply. Bears are eating a lot of fawns in the spring. Coyotes are slaughtering deer in the winter. Even the resurgence of bobcats is hurting deer. And some sportsmen think turkeys are also having an impact.

All of this is simply what I have heard or think. We must know the truth. And most importantly, we have to get together, as a sporting and landowning community, and decide how we want all of these interactions to be handled.

The Maine Forest Products Council and SAM have asked DIF&W to convene a new multi-species working group to sort through the facts and issues and prepare a plan that resolves the conflicts and specifies our preferences and expectations including favored species and habitats.

We will learn a lot from this process. For example, it will shock some folks to learn that some species would benefit from more clear cutting. Maine’s Forest Practices Act limits clear cutting to small areas and has resulted in harvests spread over a greater amount of the landscape, not a good thing for some critters.

DIF&W’s Mark Stadler responded to the request from MFPC and SAM with a commitment to host a meeting in early 2010 to present DIF&W’s process and work plan for conducting the multi-species planning work. Included in the discussion will be the make-up of the working group, its role, and a meeting schedule. This is a very positive and critically important effort.

Deer Harvests

All aspects of the deer harvest must be re-examined. This would include the locations of expanded archery hunts and the bag limits for those hunts, and the number of any deer permits issued in each district. Deer hunting seasons should not be curtailed or closed. There is no need to do this, and it would be harmful to the sport, to the economy, and to the department. The any-deer permit system works, and can be ratcheted back as necessary (2/3 of the state already gets no permits).

Best Management

The state should create a policy that makes deer wintering area management and predation control the top priorities for all public lands, state parks, and easement lands. We should work with private and nonprofit landowners to encourage them to do the same. SAM will ask the legislature to establish this priority in law.

DIF&W should also work with SWOAM to publish and provide information on roadside plantings, food plots, and other ways landowners can help sustain deer.

Landowner Relations

Deer are more plentiful in suburban areas. DIF&W, and every individual sportsman, should make landowner relations a top priority, working to maximize the amount of huntable land in suburban areas. Suburban hunting does involve different techniques than deep woods hunting, and we should all work to educate ourselves about these new techniques, and look for areas where they can be employed.

I have found that much posted land can be hunted, if the hunter gains the respect and confidence of the landowner.

It would help if the state required a phone number on all posting signs, especially those that the state gives out free of charge that say “Access by Permission Only.” SAM will work with SWOAM to see if we can get agreement on this.

SAM intends to sponsor and organize a conference for sportsmen and landowners in the spring, to explore deer management issues and other similar topics. We will also devote a significant portion of our 15th Annual Sportsman’s Congress to deer issues.

DIF&W Staff

The department must reallocate staff time and resources to the management of deer and deer wintering habitat, and the other programs specified in this plan. No other hunting constituency comes close to the numbers of deer hunters, and the challenge of rebuilding the deer herd must not fall short of receiving the resources necessary to get the job done.

Other Ideas

The following suggestions intrigue me. I offer them here merely for the purposes of discussion. Some may have merit. Others may not.

Deer Feeding: DIF&W appears willing to rethink its strong message against deer feeding, at least to the extent that it would offer information about the most effective ways to feed deer, and the specific areas (including deeryards) where such feeding would be most helpful. This would be a major departure and another indication of the department’s willingness to think outside the box.

Deeryard Protection: DIF&W could revive its program to hire ADC agents to protect deer in specific yards, mostly with coyote traps, perhaps combining this with a targeted deer feeding program in those same yards. DIF&W might also designate important yards that hunters could protect, perhaps with help from wardens in locating coyote bait.

Money: hunters might be asked, through higher license fees or other mechanisms, to fund initiatives to pay for management of deer wintering areas, deer feeding, and predation control programs.

Coyote Night Hunting: the season could be expanded and the permit fee suspended to encourage more hunters to try it.

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Benoit Brothers Trophy Buck Tracking School 2006

Back in 2006 me and photographer Milt Inman journeyed to Allagash Maine to film and cover the Benoit Brothers who were putting on a deer tracking school. The following is a short collection of some of the original video I shot during the weekend event. There’s a lot of story telling and some target shooting as well. The first part of the video is an explanation about the school and the videos you’ll see.

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2009 New Hampshire Deer and Bear Hunting Season Results

CONCORD, N.H. — Based on preliminary deer registration tallies, N.H. hunters harvested 10,390 deer during the 2009 season. This preliminary statewide total kill was down about 5% from the actual 2008 deer kill of 10,916, but is comparable to season results prior to 2006.

Based on these 2009 preliminary registration figures by county (which indicate where deer were registered, not necessarily killed), results were mixed, according to Kent Gustafson, Deer Project Leader for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

“Some areas experienced reduced deer movements this fall as a result of abundant acorn production and, until the very end of the regular firearm season, most of the state was snow-free,” said Gustafson. “These factors combined with the residual effects of recently severe winters, especially 2007-08, have reduced recent harvests from the near record kill in 2007. In spite of this, New Hampshire’s harvest again exceeded 10,000, which has only happened 15 times in the past 50 years.”

New Hampshire has an estimated population of about 85,000 deer, with the 2009 kill representing about 12% of that total. The deer hunting season closed in the state on December 15, the final day of archery deer season.

The unofficial deer kill for New Hampshire’s 2009 season by county, with comparisons to the previous 8 years, is posted at http://www.huntnh.com/Hunting/deer_hunt_take_by_County.htm.
Readers are reminded that 2009 estimates are based on the number of deer reported as being registered in each county (not necessarily killed in that county).

The unofficial harvest tally for New Hampshire’s 2009 bear season was 755 bears, the second highest bear harvest in the state’s history. Most of the increase over the 439 bear tally of 2008, took place in the northernmost three management regions, which saw poor beechnut production and highly variable oak crops. Harvest in the southernmost three management regions was very similar to previous years.

“When fall food is scarce, bears become more vulnerable to hunting as they forage over greater distances and become easier to pattern at local food sources,” said Fish and Game Bear Project Leader Andy Timmins. “This year we had an abundant apple crop and a spotty nut crop, so bears were more predictably in orchards. An increased number of bears were also taken in cornfields last fall as compared to previous years.”

Overall, the 2009 bear season tally was 50% above the preceding 5-year average (504 bears) and 72% higher than the 2008 tally (439). Hunters took 413 males and 342 females, yielding a harvest sex ratio of 1.2 males per female. A preliminary breakdown of 2009 bear season results by region and method may be found at http://www.huntnh.com/Hunting/bear_hunt_take.htm.

Final official numbers from the 2009 hunting seasons will be available in the 2009 New Hampshire Wildlife Harvest Summary, which will be published in March 2010 and posted on the Fish and Game website at http://www.huntnh.com.

New Hampshire’s successful 2009 hunting seasons are a reminder that hunting activities made possible by science-based wildlife management, contribute significantly to New Hampshire’s economy. The most recent U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service survey indicates that approximately 61,000 people hunted in New Hampshire, generating more than $75 million in hunting-related expenditures annually in the state.

The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is the guardian of the state’s fish, wildlilfe and marine resources and their habitats. Find more information and online license sales at http://www.huntnh.com.

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It Could Get Dangerous When Deer Fight

I can’t seem to find much information on these photos. They were sent to me by a reader. When everything is put in perspective, even though the focus is on the horn lodged in the buck’s right eye, that’s a pretty good sized deer.

Posted by Tom Remington

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Trapped On Ice, Coyotes Have Advantage

This is not necessarily the taking of the weak and sickly of the Maine deer herd by coyotes.

Reader Al forwarded these photos he received from a friend and fellow hunter. The photos were accompanied by a short caption.

“Tom, This email Is from Paul ***** one of the top cat hunters in the state. Looks like the buck lost out when he hit the slippery ice. Quite common for coyotes to get the upper hand when this happens.”

“Al, I forgot to send these to you the other day. I found this while chasing a cat. I was near the same stream a week before and it was open. Once froze the coyotes ran this big buck out there and ate him alive, but (fish and game) says they just get the sick and little ones! Paul”

Tom Remington

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Field & Stream’s Petzal Bags Kansas Buck Didn’t See Any Deer In Maine

While congratulations are in order for Dave Petzal in bagging a beauty of a buck in the cold and snow in Kansas, unfortunately he does nothing to help Maine’s cause for those hoping to make a few bucks (sorry) from drawing outsiders to the state for trophy whitetail.

Please don’t take me wrong, Petzal did nothing wrong and what he said in his “rantings and ravings“, is nothing more than what anybody else would have said – the truth and the truth is really going to hurt Maine’s whitetail hunting in the near and distant future.

Petzal began his article with, “And so, having hunted in Maine for a week without seeing a deer, I went to western Kansas where I could see 20 deer at a time, or 60 in a morning.” Unfortunately for Maine, this is the kind of negative advertising that is going to hurt for a long time.

For those not aware, Maine has suffered through two recent back-to-back severe winters, mostly above average years of snow. A combination of weather, diminishing habitat, overgrown predator populations and a deer management policy many are now questioning, the deer hunting in portions of Maine is abysmal.

Northern Maine, often just called “The Big Woods”, while never boasting great numbers of trophy whitetail bucks, has had a reputation of producing large-bodied, big-antlered beasts that avid hunters drooled at the prospects of bagging, willing to drop a few dollars on for the chance. The Big Woods is now the big empty woods.

In a previous article today, I shared a report that with over 5,500 hunters entering the Northern Maine Woods, only 90 deer were tagged. That’s worse than bad.

And as the word spreads and highly visible writers like Dave Petzal talk and write about their experiences, it’s not going to get very pretty for Maine hunting. Hunters, as we all know, are great for local economies come hunting season but they aren’t stupid either. They refuse to spend their money if there is no game to go hunt.

It will take years to repair the damage that has been done, both in whitetail deer management and to Maine’s shaky economy. This may destroy some of the guides and outfitters, as well as put “mom and pop” businesses under.

Congratulations Dave! Nice buck!

Note: I want to thank reader “Richard” for keeping me supplied with these news items.

Tom Remington

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Maine’s Deer Herd May Be In Worse Shape Than Feared

The only way that we can tell about what’s really going on with the Maine deer herd is reports from hunters in the field and a look at deer harvest numbers. Then we can guess. We don’t have official deer harvest numbers yet but when we do, I think we may be shocked when we look at tagged deer numbers broken down by regions. The tendencies in the past have been to look only at the overall harvest numbers.

If you will recall, last year the overall deer harvest was down 27% from the 2007 season, a harvest of just over 21,000 deer – the lowest number since 1986. I believe I recall Lee Kantar, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife head deer and moose biologist, say we could expect as much as a 30% decrease. At that time, Maine was in the middle of the winter following the 2007 season and he predicted another drop in harvest numbers. We may have dropped far greater than anyone had predicted. Is there a reason for not being able to predict?

If you haven’t seen John Holyoke’s article in the Bangor Daily News dated 12/10/09, I’ll try to sum it up.

Holyoke reports that deer hunters who ventured into the North Maine Woods, a linking together of private land comprising around 3.5 million acres, had a success rate to bag a Maine buck about that of winning the Tri-State Megabucks.

“We had 5,500 parties enter NMW during November with a harvest of less than 100 deer,” Cowperthwaite wrote. “So odds were one party in 55 shot a deer. Or about one hunter per 120. Or one deer per 35,000 acres. Or one deer per 1.5 townships.”

Al Cowperthwaite, the executive director of North Maine Woods Inc., gathered his information from gates where hunters have to enter and leave this land. He explained that his information wasn’t scientific but he felt it quite accurate.

These numbers don’t stack up well in comparison to other years, although Copperthwaite admits he doesn’t have much data from the past.

And although Cowperthwaite has no similar tally from past years, he said that during one season about 10 years ago hunters took 144 deer out through the Telos Gate alone. This year, staffers counted 18 deer at the Telos Gate.

This is quite sad and beyond dismal. I think we are staring directly into the real possibility of extirpation of the whitetail deer herd in Northern Maine. Could this have been prevented?

I will not disregard MDIFW’s claim that the recent back-to-back severe winters took its toll. I’ll also not shy away from their notion that the deer habitat, particular the wintering yard areas have shrunk so that it too is having a serious impact on deer. What I will harp about is that I don’t think MDIFW is taking serious enough the impact coyotes (and I use that term loosely) are having on the deer population.

Bob Humphrey, in an article in the Maine Outdoor Journal, puts it into writing as well as any Maine outdoor writer I’ve read.

However, deer overabundance is hardly a problem in our state – quite the opposite. Furthermore, according to a 1995 report from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, coyotes accounted for nearly 30 percent of annual deer mortality in Maine, killing as many deer each year as hunters. Fourteen years later, we have more coyotes and fewer deer, so it’s reasonable to assume that percentage is larger, possibly much larger.

The first point Humphrey makes is a good one and one that would do MDIFW a good turn if they paid closer attention. Too many “studies” about coyotes and their impact on deer and ecosystems in general, come from areas where sustaining a whitetail deer herd isn’t a problem. Areas of Maine that have been hit the hardest have never had an overabundance of deer. While MDFIW has been working toward increasing deer herds in these areas, they have not seen the success they hoped for, even when the weather cooperated.

Large predators are devastating on deer when there become too many predators and not enough prey/deer. I have to ask the question as to whether or not this has been considered? Even if one wanted to rely on the claim that coyotes will self-regulate and the numbers would shrink according to the food available, this doesn’t happen overnight. It isn’t simply directly proportional.

History shows us that large predators, wolves and coyotes in particular, if allowed to grow unchecked or via the infamous “natural” method, once they clean out their food sources, they either move on, resort to cannibalism, or their own diseases wipe them out.

Humphrey also points out a statistic that I wasn’t aware of. According to him, a report from the MDIFW claims that 30% of the annual deer mortality in the state of Maine comes from coyotes. How can MDIFW make the claim that the impact of coyotes in Maine is negligible, while killing as many deer as man does?

In his article, Humphrey tells us about a recent study that shows that 22% of coyotes in Maine have genes that can be traced back to wolves. Anyone who has spent anytime in the Maine woods has known that the coyotes Maine has aren’t the ones you see in the South or out West. If we can determine that at least some of the “Eastern Coyotes” in Maine are wolf hybrids, then maybe we shouldn’t put so much emphasis on studies done on coyotes that don’t even habituate the state or in this case, have the same killing patterns.

Wolves we know, are killing machines. All too often we, in our Disney mentality, want to think of the howling wolf in a cute, cuddly and romantic fantasy. We can argue pro and con about whether these large predators are important to our ecosystem but those arguments must include facts. If Maine’s “coyotes” have wolf genes and are a much larger canine than what is found in other parts of the country, then we can conclude that they have a better ability to kill deer and/or larger prey.

And HURRAY to Bob Humphrey! He told a truth about these canine killers that few outdoor writers and media people are willing pass on.

Without going all Farley Mowat on you, coyotes can also keep deer herds healthy by culling the sick and the weak. But they don’t take just the sick and the weak. In a typical Maine winter, deer may represent 50 to 80 percent of the coyote’s diet, according to the IFW report. In a severe winter, when deep snow severely impedes deer mobility, coyotes become opportunity killers. They will literally go from one deer to the next, killing every deer they can, even with a full belly. And the carnage doesn’t stop there.

The sooner we dispel this myth of predators only culling the weak and sick, the sooner we can move on and grow our wildlife management plans to better cope with reality. Some would argue that even if coyotes indiscriminately kill deer there are always other predators and scavengers that will clean it up. That’s partially true but also partially a myth. Studies and on the ground evidence has shown time and again, prey animals such as deer and elk, are killed and gone untouched.

In the North Maine Woods, there is no doubt few deer are left. Coyotes still have to eat. They are not going to starve themselves to death while being restricted to some fictitious menu of only sick and weak prey. We have seen nothing that would indicate the coyote population is shrinking. Depending upon circumstances, coyote numbers can grow easily by 30% per year. When a predator to prey balance becomes skewed, all hell can break loose. All hell has broken loose!

With a diet of deer that comprises 30% of the herd statewide annually and 50% – 80% of their total diet in winter, coyotes are having a very serious impact on the herd. With any hope of rebuilding and/or increasing deer numbers, this element of wildlife management must be brought under control.

We have to wait on the weather. Efforts are underway to protect remaining deer wintering areas. More needs to be done. It will be years, if ever, that deer will return to Northern and Eastern Maine but if we implement programs now, there is hope.

Perhaps one of the best things we can do is admit we don’t know everything, that mistakes have been made and that what was thought to be a really good deer management program isn’t producing the results hoped for. That’s a start. A management program has to include everything that man can control, at least to some degree.

Tom Remington

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St. Martin Island Deer Harvest

From what I can gather, these deer were taken on St. Martin’s Island off the coast of the Upper Peninsular of Michigan. All the deer were taken legally, however 10 hunters were ticketed because they had failed to attach their tags. This occurred in a raid by game wardens.

I don’t have much other information except that this entire hunt, on a private island, was part of a private deer management program aimed at growing healthier, bigger bucks. Are these the “little ones” they are getting out of the way?

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Maine Hunters Are Mad And Justly So……..For Many Reasons

Better communication can resolve a lot of problems in our world. In the converse, lack of such can cause things to spin drastically out of control. Maine hunters, particularly deer hunters, are quite angry and I believe they are justified in at least some of their anger. All they are getting are excuses.

It is no secret the past winters of 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 were tough on the Maine whitetail deer herds. I think I read someplace recently that these two winters, back to back, ranked 3rd and 9th worse in the state’s history, but they obviously weren’t the worst.

The causes for the lack of deer in Maine are complex and hunters don’t feel they are being given the courtesy of a better explanation other than winters are tough, habitat is shrinking, excuses ad nauseum. While both bad winters and shrinking habitat are as true as true can be, hunters feel more could be done to protect the deer herds and should have been done before now. This order of frustration has been building over the past two deer hunting seasons in particular, culminating this year with one of the most dismal of seasons that old timers can recall.

Lee Kantar, head deer and moose biologist at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, predicted this passing deer season would be bleak. He was right.

But that still isn’t cutting it for the hunters.

I have written in previous articles about things I think at least might be considered as ways of helping to recover a whitetail deer herd. I won’t take up space in this post to go through them again. Click here for the latest article on this issue and links to previous posts.

Let me hit briefly on the excuses being thrown out to Maine hunters about what happened to their deer herd or would I be more accurate to say the MDIFW’s deer herd, as ownership seems a bit fuzzy?

1). Severe winters
2). Loss of Habitat and Winter yarding areas
3). Predation

It should be made clear that in my opinion, I think the biggest reason hunters are mad is because they are not getting their questions answered satisfactorily and in some cases are not being treated in the manner they should be. Let’s face it, MDIFW has an uphill battle to maintain a good relationship with the public. It’s way beyond that when it comes to dealing with the license-paying hunters. They demand action for the dollars they’ve invested. But lest we forget who pays the bills? And therein lies perhaps the biggest rub.

It is my feeling, and I am far from alone, that the hunters, who have forked over the money for years for game management are being taken advantage of or at least they are perceiving it that way. This comes out in several ways but let me touch on a couple very quickly.

You don’t have to be a college educated researcher to understand that MDIFW spends way too much time addressing non-game issues, i.e. search and rescue, non-game wildlife, catering to wildlife viewers, who don’t give a dime to the cause, and spending far too much time in litigation with animal rights groups. Some of that comes from taking up a position of weakness from the MDIFW but that’s another day.

When license-paying hunters see this, combined with the reality they’ve spent a lot of money and can’t even imagine a deer in the woods, they want answers not excuses.

What this is all boiling down to is a simple matter of communication. Stop with the excuses nobody wants to hear anymore. Address the hunters as real people. They may not be all college educated but they are nobody’s fool either. Some greenhorn, wet-behind-the-ears biologists has years to go before he’ll grasp as much knowledge as some of these seasoned, crusty old Mainers.

What matters is us license buyers give fish and game people a job and too often it is forgotten. These hunters deserve more than they are getting and I’m not talking about bigger deer herds. They want officials in Augusta to tell them, we believe what you are seeing in the woods is real. They want a biologist to admit that mistakes have been made. Instead of a wildlife official telling the hunters if they don’t like the coyote situation, that’s your problem. Go do something about it. Perhaps MDIFW would be well served to assume a little ownership too. Maybe for once they could just admit that there are too many coyotes, especially now that our deer herds are in trouble. They could better support efforts to focus predator reduction around winter deer yards instead of echoing the same hollow rhetoric that predator management won’t work. If a handful of deer can be saved this way, the resulting effort is far more positive than sitting in Augusta waiting for the weather to change but more importantly, it gives hunters back their sense of inclusion and ownership. Is that all bad?

One of the biggest complaints I hear from hunters when states absorb their fish and game interests into bigger government bureaucracies, like natural resources or conservation departments, is their loss of being a part of the wildlife management process. Communication disappears and nobody in the BIG government listens.

Travis Barrett, a public relations representative for MDIFW, has his own blog now. In a post dated 12/8/09 Barrett attempts to address hunters about their concerns over an overgrown population of coyotes and what MDIFW is going to do about it. His answer, while truthful, certainly didn’t use a very good approach if he really thought it would appease the angry hunters. I think he actually thought it more of a joke. His answer was, “Coyotes can be controlled by you.”

Maine has a year-round, open hunting season on coyotes during daylight hours (1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset). It also has a more than 6-month night hunting season on coyotes.

For just $4 for the permit, you can kill as many coyotes as you wish. Day after day after day after day…

There is also an extended opportunity to trap coyotes, again with no bag limits.

Notice there is no ownership of this problem by MDIFW. Nope! The thrust of the answer is, quit your complaining. If you don’t like there being too many coyotes, go kill some. While hunters need to do exactly as Barrett is suggesting, this is poor public relations.

George Smith, Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, in his blog dated, December 3, 2009, he shares with us his notes and observations from the latest meeting of the Deer Task Force. If you haven’t read it all the way through yet, you should. The tone of the meeting that I derived from Smith’s blog certainly wasn’t encouraging as it pertained to Maine’s northern deer herd. In fairness though, there was a lot of good discussion about positive initiatives, etc.

I went away from reading this information feeling quite frankly as though MDIFW has no interest in putting any effort or resources into recovering the Northern Maine deer herd.

Stadler said lack of wintering area, including fragmentation of habitat, is the primary biological fact and “the forests of northern Maine are no longer biologically capable of supporting deer.” The driving factor is the poor winter cover.

We have coyotes in central and southern Maine, but winter cover is better in those areas so we have more deer, reported Stadler.

The reality seems to be that we will not rebuild the deer herd in the north in the short term.

Representatives of MDIFW made it a point that they have no resources available anyway; another excuse hunters want answers for.

George does bring up something he addressed the group with.

I offered the group these thoughts. Deer hunters are angry, casting blame widely, demanding fast action on all problems. Nonresident deer hunters have abandoned Maine causing severe economic loss in the outdoor industry and damaging DIF&W. It’s not good enough to say we’ll come back in a year and see what’s happened. We need real accountability and commitments now. Sportsmen also want to know what they can do and we need to provide that information.

Hunters don’t want to hear that MDIFW has no resources to do this. This is what they pay their money for and now there are no resources. Why? Because in my opinion, too many resources are being used on non-game issues. Lawsuits and the screaming, demanding wildlife viewers get the attention because MDIFW doesn’t want to deal with more lawsuits. Resources are drained and diverted away from game management.

We hear repeatedly that MDIFW has to consider all the “social” ramifications of its wildlife management decisions. It is true we can’t ignore the general public about such issues but when hunters see their investment being hijacked because of “social” issues, its going to make them angry.

While much of the information discussed at the Deer Task Force meeting that George Smith has shared with us all, is probably factual, how it is being dealt with is not doing anything to keep the hunter happy. When MDIFW loses sight of who pays their salaries, perhaps it’s time for major changes. Maybe Maine needs new leadership from the governor on down.

The question also becomes, why has it come to the point of staring down the barrel that Northern Maine’s whitetail deer population is gone? Did it have to come to such a drastic crossroad? We cannot control the weather but let’s be honest. Maine has always had stretches of bad weather and we’ve hung on.

Kantar points out that in the bad snow years of the late 60s and early 70s, the Northern Maine herd survived better then because there was more wintering habitat. Nobody will argue that fact, but still the question remains, did MDIFW plan for bad winters AND the loss of habitat other than talk about it? The fact is those winter deer yards didn’t just disappear last week. We all should have been more proactive, more aggressively dealing with the issue. The truth is we weren’t and now we are paying for it.

Here’s another factor that I’m sure will anger some and begin driving a wedge between hunters and outfitters; something that can’t happen. According to Smith’s accounting, it was asked if MDIFW planned on doing anything about reducing the bear population in areas where deer herds are suffering to help alleviate the predation; a suggestion I have had for some time.

Jim Tobin asked why we aren’t expanding bear hunting opportunities or bag limits. The answer is that the bear hunting outfitters oppose an increase in the bear harvest, and fear anything that opens up bear hunting to another referendum. Stadler said DIF&W was simply following the recommendations of the Predation Task Force.

We’re all in this together, aren’t we? I have no issue with outfitters trying to make a living and I certainly understand their concerns about being fearful of lawsuits and referendums but doesn’t anyone else see the anger that will arise when regular “Joe”, who’s mad as hell because the deer are gone, discovers the outfitters are making the decisions as to what is best for the protection and rebuilding of a seriously depleted deer herd? Now hunters will question the make up of the Predator Task Force. Perhaps Baldacci needs to form another “task force”. And doesn’t Stadler’s response sound more like a cop out?

These are only some of the issues that hunters see and are angry about. They are not getting any satisfactory answers. An employee of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, it would seem, would be seriously concerned about keeping a job. Are they not biting the hand that feeds them?

George Smith is right. Out-of-state hunters will not come to Maine and hunt, at least not for a long time. That’s big revenue loss. Without it, someone has to go at MDIFW.

But what could be worse than losing all that license revenue from out-of-state hunters? Simple. Losing resident hunters as well. They will get fed up with spending money each year to go walk around the woods looking at coyote tracks and recalling the days when there used to be a lot of deer around. Maine hunters are very supportive of fish and game interests and are willing to cough up more money when they are convinced the money is well spent. Trust me. They are not convinced!

Maine should be very happy they have Gerry Lavigne. He understands the problems and he sees Maine hunters are not going to get any help from MDIFW. They don’t see coyote predation as a problem. Travis Barrett was right. Hunters need to take this matter into their own hands and go kill coyotes. This is no joke! They need to kill as many as they can. They are like rodents and need to be kept in smaller numbers. They carry and spread disease and in numbers too great, they destroy other parts of our ecosystems.

Lavigne is taking positive steps to do something about predation. He spells it out here and here. My advice to you is to stop looking at MDIFW for help. They have their agendas and it isn’t necessarily the same as yours. If you think coyotes are killing all the deer in your favorite hunting grounds, it’s time to do something about it.

I wrote back last May what has now become the obvious. I said that the reality was that MDIFW did not have the resources to manage whitetail deer in Northern Maine. I’ve explained what I think is the reason, so what are we going to do about it? Should we let Baldacci create a bigger governmental kibosh by combining several agencies or are we going to demand that our investment into game management be better looked after?

I will repeat myself. Managing deer in Maine is a serious and complex undertaking. I am willing to believe that what the majority of Maine’s wildlife officials are telling us is true, even though I know many readers will not concur. Winters can be severe and will be again. Habitat has been reduced and efforts are underway to find a cure. I think MDIFW discounts the negative effects of large predators on our deer. I don’t. But the two biggest issues I have right now are these.

1). What got us to the point we are at now?, and
2). MDIFW needs to do a far better job in public relations than they are.

They need to stop putting down the hunters and ridiculing them for sharing their frustrations and on-the-ground observations. The also need to spend less of our time and money on non-game issues and get back to the business of managing game.

Maine cannot afford to lose its deer herd and it will never survive without the average “Joe” buying his license every year. Make all the excuses in the world as to what happened to the deer herd but there is no real excuse for poor communications and lousy public relations.

Tom Remington

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