To the Editor:

In response to Mr. [Dick] Johnson’s proposal to have a two-week shotgun season added to next January, I would like to ask, has anyone asked the Vineyard hunters about this?

I hunt. It’s a passion, it’s part of who I am. I taught the hunter education program with Walter Ashley for over 10 years. I have worked at the Up-Island deer check station for close to 10 years. I have hunted on the Vineyard for the past 30-plus years. In simpler times, all one would have to do was stop in to Walther’s shop, CtW, to hear the pulse and sentiment of Island hunters.

I question the statistics used here (4,000 herd size; 40 per square mile). According to whom? What is the estimated tick-infested rodent population on the Island (100,000-plus)? Are the deer being truthful on their family survey forms? Are those helicopters looking for pot plants or counting deer?

My interest is in the health and welfare of the Island deer herd. I am also concerned with the epidemic level of Lyme disease. Deer play one part in this complex puzzle. Is the herd too big? Probably. More people, less habitat. How to reduce its size? Not two more weeks of shotgun.

Gang hunting? Or should I say group — gang has such a negative connotation. No, I will stick with gang because when adorned in hunter orange I am often treated like a criminal by both the general public and the law enforcement community. Maybe they mistake my gun for a pointy stick and think I am picking up trash. Hunting in groups is used to drive deer. What’s driving? It’s where you have X amount of hunters walking through the brush to get the deer up out of their hiding places, and to push them to another group of hunters, who are waiting, “the standers.” It is the most effective way to cull deer.

Like gangs, we are literally fighting for turf to hunt on. Open up Trustees of Reservations, Land Bank, Sheriff’s Meadow, Nature Conservancy, and other large private tracts of land to groups of shotgun hunters, not by means of unfair and complicated lotteries or archery-only areas, and you will see large numbers of deer taken. Have hunting on Sundays during the regular season. There is your two-week increase. Change the order of the seasons. Black powder and archery first, followed by shotgun.

The hunters are the ones who are going to do all the work. Ask them! A large part of the deer herd is living on private property not accessible to most or any hunters, and this will not change.

I ask that while Mr. Johnson is changing seasons, if he would shorten the tourist season also, by at least two weeks. The traffic sucks!

Herb Moody
West Tisbury