The second coming of Christ may happen before the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will post up on their website the 2009 whitetail deer harvest broken out by towns. However, being the sly and resourceful person that I am (spelled out to mean I know people who know people), I was able to get my hands on a map showing the breakout.

Being that 2005 was a pretty decent year for deer harvest in Maine, I decided to do some comparisons. First, I took a print out of the Maine map showing towns and drew a big black line that would divide the state into two parts. The map to the left shows a shaded area that depicts most of Northern and Eastern Maine and also separated into 7 zones for ease of counting and making comparisons. I compared 2005′s count with 2009′s.

To do this wasn’t easy as all I had to work with were two maps and very tiny print. I will not vouch that the numbers I have are 100% accurate but I will attest that they are in the ballpark enough to realize Maine has a very serious problem. Essentially, I broke the entire area I wanted to count into 7 zones and counted each zone.

Within the entire shaded area that encompasses Northern and Eastern Maine, the 2009 deer harvest was 1,499 deer – that’s pretty pathetic. This compares with 2005 that was 5,067. My calculations put that at right around a 70% reduction in deer harvest.

Let’s look at this closer, by using my zones.

Zone 1 – 2009 = 117 deer harvested. 2005 = 634
Zone 2 – 2009 = 322 deer harvested. 2005 = 1,273
Zone 3 – 2009 = 205 deer harvested. 2005 = 352
Zone 4 – 2009 = 257 deer harvested. 2005 = 825
Zone 5 – 2009 = 173 deer harvested. 2005 = 521
Zone 6 – 2009 = 199 deer harvested. 2005 = 451
Zone 7 – 2009 = 226 deer harvested. 2005 = 1,011

There’s one thing about the present situation. Next year the harvest shouldn’t be such a drastic drop. After all, nothing from nothing leaves nothing. Other things outdoor sportsmen should be aware of. The deer herd is virtually gone. This means there will be a lot of hungry coyotes and black bears roaming about. Expect to find both of these predators infiltrating your backyard and possibly posing a risk to you, your children, pets and livestock. The coyotes will also consume all the snowshoe hare, the prime diet of the Canada lynx, and the lynx will begin vacating the state. Generally speaking, some lynx will hang around and starve to death, some will resort to cannibalism but the majority will just make their way back north or wherever they can find food and habitat suitable for survival. This is a natural phenomenon but I’m sure trappers will be blamed for the disappearance of the lynx.

When bears come out of hibernation, they are hungry. It isn’t long thereafter that bears will target the new fawns. Judging that there will be no real fawns added to the deer herd in Northern and Eastern Maine, will result in hungry bears. Be prepared for that. Take down your bird feeders but I suggest you take more precautions than that. If you live in bear country, keep an eye on livestock and your children.

I’m also wondering if those at MDIFW see this as a real problem? I assume not in that no real action has been taken that would indicate any kind of emergency situation. Being that an “emergency” ruling opened the open water fishing season early (not sure the emergency) taking more fish must be more important than saving a deer herd. The trapping season should have been extended and snaring allowed at least in areas not designated as protected habitat for the lynx. None of this was done.

The bear season needs to be adjusted to reduce the number of bears that will result in fewer fawns taken in the spring. That doesn’t look like it will happen out of fear that the animal rights groups will sue. As we can see now, that fear has driven a deer herd to extinction and will chase lynx out of Maine, to name some of what has happened.

It amazes me that the fish and game department thinks nothing of completely destroying a predator that is bugging some fish in a pond but does virtually nothing to save a deer herd except hope Al Gore is right and tell everyone to stop complaining because they have an open season on coyotes.

Oh, and I almost forget! MDIFW doesn’t have any money to do anything with. Too bad they spend all our license money on things that have no benefit to fish and game.

Some things simply don’t make any sense.

Tom Remington

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