The Martha’s Vineyard shotgun deer-hunting season opened Monday with a noticeably quieter start compared with past seasons. Fewer hunters were in the woods, and lower deer check-in numbers were tallied on opening day.
The shotgun season runs through Dec. 13, and according to public health biologist and Island tick expert Patrick Roden-Reynolds, it’s the Island’s most effective tool for controlling its overabundant deer herd, which fuels high tick populations and tick-borne diseases — an ever-present concern for the Vineyard, which has a much higher rate of infections than the rest of the state.
At the Agricultural Society’s community deer cooler, where hunters hang and donate venison, Roden-Reynolds said the pace has been surprisingly slow.
“I only hung three deer at the cooler last night,” said Roden-Reynolds the day after opening day. “Usually I hang twice or triple that — closer to double digits.”
The state’s shotgun check station in Oak Bluffs, where biologists like Roden-Reynolds collect COVID-19 samples, DNA samples, weight, and other data from deer, as well as ticks to be sent to biology labs at Tufts University and University of Massachusetts Amherst to be studied, has also experienced a slowdown compared with previous seasons.
“I was only down at the check station for a few hours, but when I was there they only checked like 30 deer; typically in the past, they checked 50 to 100 deer for opening day, it seems like there are fewer hunters in the woods,” said Roden-Reynolds.
According to current estimates from the annual Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife report, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket averages 55 deer per square mile, and those estimates count deer only in properties open to hunting. In areas with much higher deer population densities, there may even be 100 deer per square mile. Roden-Reynolds previously told The Time that six to 10 deer per square mile is an ideal balance to both reduce ticks and limit deer impacts on rare plants.
“When it comes to tick abundances and tick numbers, the deer are the primary drivers of that, because the primary reproductive hosts for deer ticks and lone star ticks are white-tailed deer,” said Roden-Reynolds. “It’s difficult; if you really want to affect tick numbers, then you need to get deer densities pretty low, and right now the Island is struggling with high deer densities.”
Frederick Gehring Jr., a longtime hunter from Oakham, who has been traveling to the Island for shotgun season for almost 15 years now, and his son, Frederick Gehring III from Holland, who has been doing it for three, were a pair of hunters who found success in their hunting trip. On Tuesday afternoon, the day after shotgun season opened, the two brought a 78-pound doe they hunted in the West Tisbury portion of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest to the Agricultural Society’s deer cooler.
“It was a 30-yard shot,” said Gehring III. “A pretty good kill. It didn’t go too far. We dragged it about a hundred yards [back to the truck.]”
Gehring Jr. said he has noticed a decline in the amount of active hunters in recent years, but he also said he thinks he has noticed a decline in the amount of ticks found on the deer he sees.
“The deer used to be a lot more loaded with ticks, and over time we noticed less ticks,” he said. “I still see a good number of ticks on the deer, but not anything like 12 years ago.”
Gehring Jr. added, “The biologists are on top of it,” and they provide good information about ticks and the dangers posed by the arachnids.
The Gehrings said their tradition of coming to Martha’s Vineyard to hunt during shotgun season has been passed down through generations among friends and family.
“We have a line of guys, and we do a drive,” said Gehring Jr. “They let you walk up on them. Typically a shot for us with a running deer is 10 to 15 yards, and they don’t make it farther than say 30 [yards].”
For the Gehrings, they aren’t trophy hunters. They hunt because they enjoy eating venison.
“Originally it was for the excitement and the meat. I enjoy eating game animals. It supplements my diet, so not really a trophy hunter but a meat eater,” said Gehring Jr.
On Martha’s Vineyard, shotgun season is not only a favorite seasonal pastime but also carries the added purpose of culling the Island’s massive deer herd and tick numbers. While shotgun season is only two weeks long, archery and primitive firearms hunting has been extended through January, as opposed to their usual December end.
“I don’t mind helping out with the ecology; we know there’s overpopulation, and hunting is a tactic for keeping it under control,” said Gehring Jr.