In the coming week, Sen. David Trahan will unveil an aggressive statewide plan to restore Maine’s diminishing deer population.
The Deer Action Plan (DAP), which Gov. Paul LePage requested shortly after his election last fall, was written by George Smith, the former Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, and is the product of a summit last December attended by three-dozen outdoor leaders, including the Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife and representatives of Maine’s major sportsmen’s groups and clubs.
Maine’s deer population has declined dramatically in recent years, but “wildlife folks have been talking about it for at least 10 or 15 years,” said John Boland, IF&W Resource Management Director. The DAP calls for IF&W to make restoring deer populations their top priority, a step that Boland said is already taking place.
“Until now, it hasn’t received the attention or the resources needed to make the kind of progress we’re looking for,” Trahan said Feb. 21. The plan will officially be made public after the new IF&W Commissioner is confirmed; nominee Chandler Woodcock is expected to be confirmed on Feb. 28.
Deer have “disappeared from the North Woods,” and their numbers in the rest of the state are greatly diminished, according to the plan, which calls for increases to the target populations of deer in all parts of the state.
The dwindling population could have a devastating effect on Maine’s hunting economy. Along with being an integral part of Maine’s heritage, the wildlife economy – hunting, fishing and watching – is estimated to be a billion dollar per year industry, Smith said. Hunting generates about $450 million of that, and about $300 million of the hunting economy centers around deer, Smith said.
Perhaps equally important to LePage, Trahan and others behind the plan, is the fact that a significant portion of that money is spent in rural areas, Trahan said.
Anecdotal reports from guides and other hunting-related businesses, such as sporting camps, butchers and taxidermists, as well as rural hotels and gas stations, indicate that in recent years, revenues from deer have plummeted, forcing some to move out of state and others to shift their focus to other services, Smith said.
Three predominant factors are cited as the cause of the decline in deer population: insufficient winter habitat for deer, due in large part to extensive deforestation; increased predation from coyotes and bears, which have seen population increases in recent years; and heavy snowfalls in 2007-08, 2008-09 and this winter, each of which hurt an already ailing population.
The plan calls for IF&W to shift their resources to deer restoration, for existing funds outside IF&W to be explored for protecting deer habitat, and for individuals and sportsmen’s organizations throughout the state to get involved.
Even before the official public unveiling, “I’m already getting calls from outdoorsmen, landowners and other people interested in working on this,” Trahan said. “I think hunters will really step up to make this happen.”
“We’ve made this a priority,” Boland said. “Staff will be taken off other tasks, there’s no doubt about that.”
The existing plans have been updated and input from the summit that generated the DAP has been added, and IF&W has created a separate comprehensive plan for how they will work on the problem, which Boland expects will be completed next week.
The department is in the process of estimating the cost of the deer restoration effort, Boland said.
The DAP acknowledges the strains that increased efforts will place on IF&W, but “deer must come first,” according to the plan.
Although the plan recognizes that cuts may need to be made to other IF&W programs, Trahan believes that they will not be necessary. There is enough money available from current sources of revenue and existing funds that are not currently being directed towards restoring deer to cover the cost of the project, he said.
Plus, “if we have to go there, I’m confident hunters will accept the burden of an increase in fees if it means bringing back deer,” Trahan said, “but let’s implement as much of this as we can before we go there.”
One source of funding that is not currently being directed towards deer management is the Land for Maine’s Future (LMF) program, which the DAP recommends should be re-funded. The program buys land for conservation, but a shift in directive to buy property that contains deer wintering habitat would provide a funding boost to the deer restoration efforts, Trahan said.
Currently, there are $5 million available in LMF, plus an additional $2 million available from the Katahdin Lake deal, in which the state traded land to the Gardiner family in exchange for properties abutting Baxter State Park plus $2 million, Trahan said.
Conserving deeryards fits with LMF’s objectives, and with the size of the deer hunting industry, “that’s really where the money is,” Trahan said.
Trahan also believes there is significant support among key figures in the legislature for the DAP, and believes there will be the same support for measures that would help fund the plan, such as an upcoming bill Trahan sponsored to commit a portion of sales tax revenues to IF&W for non-sportsmen related programs, such as endangered species conservation and search and rescue.
“They’re one of the only departments that generates revenue,” Trahan said, “and the resources they manage are a huge part of our economy; the deer population has crashed, and it has to be a priority.”
Participation from sportsmen, outdoors organizations, conservation groups, landowners and other private individuals will be crucial to the success of the restoration effort, Trahan said. In the DAP, individuals are called upon to participate in land management programs, population and habitat surveys, predator control and deer feeding programs.
“There is an army out there, waiting for orders,” according to the plan.
Deer feeding continues to be a controversial aspect of management. IF&W does not endorse the practice of private citizens feeding deer because of a variety of potential harms to the deer, including the use of improper food, clustering deer close to roadways and encouraging deer to remain close to the food sources during the winter. When deer don’t forage widely for food in the winter, the paths they pack into the snow are not as long or deviating, and the deer become more vulnerable to predators.
However, Trahan and many others believe that because the practice of feeding deer has been going on for so long – and because additional help is needed now to restore the population – IF&W’s approach should be to increase education programs that teach people how to properly feed deer, rather than discouraging it all together.
“People see deer starving to death, and they want the deer to survive,” Trahan said. “You’re not going to stop it, so figure out how to make sure as many people do it wisely as possible.”
The land management programs citizens will be called on to take part in include efforts to change the way Maine handles conflicts between deer and farms. Currently, a farmer whose crops are being destroyed by deer can apply for a permit to shoot the deer on his property.
The DAP calls for the addition of programs that allow farmers to profit from providing access to hunters rather than shooting all the deer. Some of those programs are already being explored by IF&W, Boland said.
IF&W has been increasing its efforts to work with landowners on managing their property to encourage deer restoration, increase access for sportsmen and teach them methods for deer-proofing their crops, Boland said.
One of the big questions they’re working on now is how to provide incentives for landowners that participate in the programs.
“We ask a lot of our land owners,” Boland said. “I’m all ears when people come up with ways to compensate them.”
In the past, the problem has often been a lack of man-hours available to send representatives from IF&W to visit landowners and help them manage their land. With the new focus on deer restoration, Boland hopes that will change. The DAP calls for extensive use of individual sportsmen to work with landowners on deer habitat improvement.
One aspect that everyone involved anticipates will receive ample support from hunters is the effort to reduce predation. The DAP and IF&W are calling for increased programs to hunt and trap coyotes, which kill a lot of wintering deer.
IF&W is looking into programs to increase their efforts to bring down the coyote population and ways to compensate hunters and trappers that take part in the effort, which the DAP also recommends.
Trahan also recommends that there be no expansion of deer hunting in coming years and a reduction to the number of doe tags issued.
Reducing hunting too far, however, threatens the effort’s primary funding source – hunting fees. As Smith pointed out, it would also be counterproductive to reduce the size of the industry the program is designed to save.
“Some people think we should stop hunting,” Smith said, “but the economic impact of that would be devastating.”
Everyone involved stressed that the deer restoration effort is a long-term plan – Trahan estimated as long as 20 years to accomplish some key goals – but all feel that now is a crucial time to start work.
“There’s a lot of interest and excitement,” Smith said. “The timing is just right for us to take this on in a comprehensive way.”
As part of the effort, IF&W will also begin a widespread effort to disseminate information regarding the deer restoration project. A newsletter will be available providing updates on the project and a series of public informational meetings will be held. The schedule for those meetings will be announced when the DAP is officially unveiled next week.
For more information on deer restoration efforts, contact IF&W at 287-5252, or go online to www.mefishwildlife.com. Information, including the full DAP, is also available on George Smith’s website, www.georgesmithmaine.com.
