A battle against ticks takes to the air

From dusk to dawn, drone launches are scheduled to take place over the next two weeks from more than 100 sites across the Island to track the abundant deer population, as part of a stepped-up effort to cull the herd and address a rise in tick-borne conditions. 

The drones will be launched from preapproved lands owned by the Island’s towns and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) as well as from private property. Through infrared thermal cameras and flown at below 400 feet in a systematic grid pattern, the drones are used to track and collect baseline data for the Island’s deer population size and distribution, in an ambitious effort to curb the scourge of ticks.

Ticks can be as small as a sesame seed, and some nymphs are even translucent, but this effort seeks to take to the sky to get an overview on how ticks spread across the Island through attachment to the deer population. This, experts say, is essential in order to understand the vector of eight tick-borne infectious diseases and allergies that are seen at significantly higher rates here on the Island compared to the rest of the state.

The use of drones for a broad survey of the deer population is only the initial step. There are many partners in what is expected to be a protracted battle — from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)–certified pilots to public health officials to state representatives to tech professionals, and builders who spend hours in trees in the months of September to February. The work of all of these people could not only stop the spread of tick-borne diseases and allergies, but have ancillary benefits as well, such as helping with food equity through donations of venison and promoting coastal resilience and forest regeneration by reducing the voracious foraging of deer. There are even bounties from donated deer for Islanders.

It was over a decade ago that the last survey was conducted through traditional aircraft by the Martha’s Vineyard boards of health and found that there were roughly 50 deer per square mile, compared to 19 deer per square mile on the mainland. That is estimated by the state to be even higher now. This survey would use the latest drone technology to show a more comprehensive view of the Island’s deer population.

The new survey is commissioned by Tick Free MV, a new nonprofit created in December that hopes to reduce tick-borne diseases and allergies through a reduction of the number of ticks in the environment. But to do that, they have to target deer, one of the primary hosts of ticks. The Island boasts one of the highest deer densities in the state, and on Martha’s Vineyard, which is effectively devoid of predators, one female can produce two fawns a year; they can reproduce as young as 6 months old, and essentially replicate themselves by age 1, Martin Feehan, deer biologist for the state department MassWildlife, told a group of hunters last Thursday.

The work of this survey is dependent on weather but is expected to conclude on March 7, and results are anticipated at the end of next month. Tick Free MV contracted White Buffalo, an independent conservation nonprofit from Connecticut established in 1996 that specializes in deer management, to conduct the survey and analyze the results. Jason Boulanger, head of research for the group, said that “tick-borne disease is a common concern for communities” where they conduct drone-based deer surveys.

“Today’s infrared quadcopter drones can hover, zoom in and out, and adjust camera angles to peer under tree canopies as we move more slowly across the landscape, which helps us find otherwise hidden deer and produce a more accurate count with minimal disturbance,” Boulanger said.

The survey won’t be able to capture identifiable images of people, faces, or homes, and though there have been some concerns about the drones from Islanders and a desire to know launch sites and dates, the nonprofit said it would not disclose those details for practical reasons.

“This helps protect the launch sites, equipment, and operators. Well-meaning members of the public could decide to visit these locations, which could unintentionally disrupt this work,” Virginia Barbatti, executive director of Tick Free MV, said.

Still, there’s a consensus from those involved in the effort that the survey is necessary.

“We need to know how many deer we’re dealing with,” Joseph Capece, president of the MV Hunt Club, said to The Times at the club’s headquarters Tuesday.

Tick Free MV wants to be the backbone of an Island-wide tick strategy, reported to be worse than ever on the Island last year, and the group is the grease on an already well-oiled machine that’s propelled the Island forward to face the problem. Capece is another part, though one more unseen, of the engine, as are all the other hunters on the Island.

The MV Hunt Club, which Brian Athearn, property acquisitions and stand manager, called a “mini Ag Hall,” started as an apple tree and a rope in 2019, and grew to include 50 members and a decked-out headquarters that has the capability to process and refrigerate the venison gleaned from harvested deer. The club started in part to increase land access for hunters as the Island became more and more developed.

And all volunteer-run, that’s not necessarily easy. Athearn as well as Capece and Brent Nanatovich, another member of the hunt club, work to dispel some of the worries that Islanders hold about the sport. One, most of those involved in the club only do archery, and for archery, precision is key. It would be really hard for them to hit a human. Athearn said he looks through a scope on a crossbow so detailed that he picks what piece of hair on a deer to target. Also, all of the hunters in the club are vetted and restricted to certain properties based on skill level, and information is all organized on a virtual portal accessible by hunters and landowners.

And even though in Massachusetts there are no non-hunters deaths or injuries from archery, the state doesn’t hold landowners liable for accidents on their land. But, fears around the sport have started to change, the three hunters agreed. And a lot of that is because everyone knows someone that has the tick-borne allergy alpha-gal syndrome.

The hunt club has also seen an increase in interest from landowners because people want the deer gone. It saves people thousands of dollars of landscape damage. Athearn even called themselves an extra property manager or “another set of eyes,” — once Capece was able to alert homeowners that their bulkhead was left open, which would’ve let their pipes freeze. 

But there’s a motivation behind Island hunters that reaches higher than just antlers mounted to a wall, though Athearn, Capece, and Nanatovich couldn’t hold back a jovial, almost juvenile gleam from their eyes when they spoke about the sport. Many of these hunters, even Athearn, suffer from alpha-gal and can’t actually eat the venison they procure; but through a network of partners across the Island, they’re incentivized to donate the meat to food-insecure Islanders. And not only that, but as of about the middle of the season, Tick Free MV paid hunters between $100 (buck) and $150 (doe) to donate deer; the group also plans to retroactively repay hunters for the start of the season. For the MV Hunt Club, that’s extra cash on top of the reimbursement that the state gives to processors per each deer cut and packaged.

The financial incentives are especially welcomed by Islanders who make most of their money in the summer months. “We have one guy down here that couldn’t make his mortgage,” Athearn said. “And he came down, and he’s been butchering deer just to make his mortgage this month.”

There were 17 deer donated last season, and this year, there were 90 deer donated, a number which Patrick Roden-Reynolds, a tick biologist for the MV Tick Program and also a senior advisor for Tick Free MV, said rose because the MV Hunt Club became an official processor this past year. Roden-Reynolds is confident that they’ve broken 100 from this past weekend, at the end of the extended season. Essentially, 10 percent of the harvest on MV is donated, Roden-Reynolds said.

Hunters can either drop off their deer at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society’s Community Deer Cooler in order to store the carcass for a fee, or donate to the Island’s Venison Donation Program, which is part of MassWildlife’s Hunters Share the Harvest Program. Roden-Reynolds acts as an intermediary between the hunters and the nonprofit Island Grown Initiative (IGI), which processes and distributes the venison to food-insecure Islanders and tribal communities.

Deer also go to the MV Hunt Club to be processed, and Bret Stearns, who wears many hats but is the administrator of the tribe’s natural resource department, distributes some of the venison to the tribe, mostly from Athearn and the hunt club. Stearns said tribal citizens often request parts, like pelts or bones for ceremonial regalia, and he said Athearn’s always saved parts upon request.

Roden-Reynolds said he’s blown away by how many deer were donated. He thought maybe they’d get 50 this year.

IGI, which runs the Island’s only food pantry, has harvested venison from donated deer over the past seven years. In 2019, Marie Ambrose, a hunter and then program coordinator for the nonprofit, saw the potential to glean Island-caught deer, and since then, they’ve processed 3,035 pounds of venison.

“She was seeing, through our gleaning program, all the needs for food support in the community, and she started making this connection between the deer that were being hunted on the Island and the potential to get high-quality proteins to people facing food insecurity,” Noli Taylor, co-executive director of IGI, said. IGI, one partner in the Island’s food equity network, serves about one in five members of the year-round community through its pantry.

Astrid Tilton, now gleaning manager for IGI, learned how to butcher by example. She watched Ambrose, then Jefferson Monroe, who was the farmer of the GOOD Farm in Vineyard Haven, and Charlie Granquist, now chef at Slough Farm, process the meat. Now, she runs operations out of the nonprofit’s commercial kitchen space at the airport business park. It was Roden-Reynolds who connected IGI to MassWildlife’s statewide donation distribution process, which started only four years ago.

Tilton said that she jokes to her coworkers about the process: “It’s like Michelangelo making a sculpture. It’s like it’s already there. You just have to find it.”

And the number of deer they’ve processed continues to increase each year. In 2024, 10 hunters donated deer. In 2025, 14 hunters donated, and they were able to process 23 deer and produce 736 pounds of venison.

Most of the venison goes out through the food pantry, including to Kinship Heals, a program by Wampanoag women, which picks up from IGI weekly to do food drops in Aquinnah.

And though they’ve processed venison for the last seven years, Taylor said IGI wants to focus more on distribution in the future, and added that there’s interest from Tick Free MV to create a centralized facility that could possibly process 50 deer a day.

“We are at the very early stages of envisioning what an increased capacity processing facility could look like. So that’s where we’re at right now,” Barbatti said.

But both results from the survey and the potential ability to process 50 deer a day only matters if Islanders can hunt 50 deer a day, and on top of a decrease in hunters over the past half-century, there have been strict regulations in Massachusetts for years that hamper that.

However, the state seems to want to change course in recent months. After an information and coordination meeting regarding ticks and deer with state representatives in December, a press release announced that Massachusetts expanded the winter primitive firearm and bow-hunting season on the Island by an additional two weeks into February. In fact, the season officially ended on Saturday.

The state also tacked on an additional hunting season next fall, from Sept. 21 through Oct. 1 in 2026, for primitive firearms and archery. There are also regulatory hearings Monday, Feb. 23, on new regulations and making the emergency regulation changes, like the extended winter deer season, permanent. MassWildlife’s Feehan also came to the Island last week to discuss deer damage permits, which allow farmers to permit designated agents to hunt on their land outside of the regular season.

Meanwhile, there are several bills in the state legislature to try to encourage an increase in hunters. One calls for universal access to more efficient and easier-to-use crossbows (currently limited to people who suffer from a disability) rather than compound bows or longbows. Another proposal is for less-stringent rules on access to land. Several Islanders attended a listening session held by MassWildlife in Bourne on Feb. 2 to speak in favor of those changes.

Feehan even plans to speak to local tourism boards to promote off-Island deer hunters to come to a place that he said “is balmy” in the winter months compared to northern Maine and New Hampshire.

In terms of off-Island hunters, Athearn wants to be organized and have them work with Island hunters towards the same goal, “the Island way.” Still, he welcomes them: “I want those hunters … I want their eyes.”