John Holyoke’s article this week in the Bangor Daily News reveals some troubling and confusing quotes from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) about what’s behind the announcement that the allotment of “Any-Deer” Permits would be reduced by 46%.

First up?

“The state’s head deer biologist on Wednesday said that hunters and wildlife watchers shouldn’t be overly concerned by the reduction, however.”

For whatever the reasons an overnight 46% reduction in antlerless deer permits should be concerning for everybody. When was the last time MDIFW decided to reduce numbers that much, excluding the decision to end all “Any-Deer” Permits in northern, eastern and parts of western Maine?

Lee Kantar, MDIFW’s head deer biologist says that people are getting “mixed up” with what’s going on in northern, eastern and western Maine and southern Maine. I’m not “mixed up” but I’m overly concerned and I’ll explain why.

When you read comments like: “This [reduction in permits] is just looking at what’s occurred in past winters and getting some new information with our survey work and staying on top of the game…….”, is what “overly” concerns me. MDIFW boasts of how their doe management program is the answer to deer management. We have been told that the allotment of “Any-Deer” permits in the southern part of the state, where severe winters don’t take such a toll on the deer herd and predators aren’t much of a problem, takes care of population management goals very nicely, thank you. We have been led to believe MIDFW was “staying on top of the game”.

What makes me “overly” concerned is that after one winter of flying over 2 Wildlife Management Districts and a rush to chop permits by 46%. This should be overly concerning to everyone because it tells me estimated deer populations, by modeling, in the southern part of the state aren’t anywhere near what MIDFW thought they were. Making a 46% adjustment isn’t “staying on top of the game”. If that’s the case, what else isn’t quite what MIDFW thinks it is?

What else makes me “overly concerned”? How about this:

“If you look at the buck and doe harvest [between 1999 and 2010] there’s no change. The modeling that we do showed that back in 1999 it looked like there were about 20 deer per square mile there.”

After the aerial surveys, Kantar discovered that the population density was likely less than 15 deer per square mile.

The population density is likely less than 15 deer/sq. mile? So, if it’s less than 15, is it 14.5 or is it 2? This reminds me of the Joe Perham fishing story he often told. Two men went fishing and one guy caught a fish. Upon returning home, someone asked if they had any luck. The guy who caught the fish said he caught one that was 9 inches long. The other guy says, “You never tell anyone how long your fish was. You tell them, you wouldn’t think it was bigger than 15 inches.”

Mr. Kantar asks people to be patient and tells us that what is being done is being done by design. While I realize we can’t afford to do fly-overs to count deer herds each year, it is troubling to find out the modeling and estimating isn’t living up to the reputation we have all been told over the past several years. This should make us overly concerned and it should give us pause to ask what else isn’t living up to the reputation we are being told? – bears? lynx? coyotes? bobcats? moose? winter severity? habitat?

The upside to this is that if 2 fly-overs has actually resulted in the discovery that even our southern deer herd needs help, then I will recant my opposition to spending $100,000 to do the aerial surveillance. We shall see.


Photo Design by Richard Paradis

Tom Remington

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