These are men capable of being perfectly still in a tree stand, in the cold and silent air. But they aren’t as at home in meetings, and certainly not ones that last for hours. Many of them abandoned the uncomfortable metal chairs and instead lined the edges of the Agricultural Hall’s main room. Most stayed there, arms folded, as the forum went on for nearly three hours.
This was last Thursday, and the group of hunters were gathered to hear from three biologists — Martin Feehan, Patrick Roden-Reynolds, and Richard (“Dick”) Johnson — about recent changes to the regulatory landscape in which they hunt, as well as raise questions about the whole plan to reduce the amount of deer on the Island in an effort to curb ticks, amid a public health crisis.
They brought forward valid concerns and important questions. They wanted to know the next steps in the Island-wide effort to address high deer densities and the health risks the deer pose via ticks. They expressed concerns about sharpshooters for deer as well as prescribed burns and chemical treatments to rid the Island of ticks especially because as was discussed at the forum, fewer deer doesn’t immediately or necessarily mean fewer ticks. And hunter buy-in on this initiative is critical.
It was the end of June when Tick Free MV, a nonprofit less than a year old, announced a goal to reduce the Island’s deer population by 70 percent, from around 5,000 to 1,500 or less, based on numbers from an aerial deer survey conducted in February and March and state standards of a healthy deer herd.
But there didn’t seem to be a single person in the room Thursday, even Martin Feehan, deer and moose biologist for the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife), who specializes in deer and hunter-harvest management, who thinks that hunters alone can get the Island down to that number.
Cody Chandler, a local hunter who organized and moderated the forum, asked Feehan, “Do you think it’s possible for hunting methods alone to get the deer to the number that you’re targeting?” Feehan replied, “No.”
There are 458 licensed hunters who live on Martha’s Vineyard, and 612 licensed hunters who live off-Island and purchased a permit to hunt antlerless deer on Martha’s Vineyard.
But if hunters aren’t enough, what is the plan? Though the state and locals part of the public health effort want to rely on hunters to both reduce the number of deer and tick-borne conditions, like the meat allergy alpha-gal, that won’t be the case, not alone at least. And there isn’t a concrete plan in place yet to make up the difference.
“The honest truth is that there is enough public pressure that if we can’t very quickly show that hunting is very effective when coupled with deer damage permits, I think the public pressure is going to be insurmountable to not push aggressive actions … such as more commercial removal,” Feehan said. In other words, sharpshooters are possible.
Deer damage permits (DDPs) were brought up in anger at the discussion after a large, antlered buck was recently killed on one of the permits. Some hunters maintain that the use of state-issued DDPs, introduced to the Island this year and allows agricultural property owners to call in hunters outside the regulated season, when deer are more easily targeted, undercuts the sport. It can be characterized as sharpshooting. For most health officials, such a distinction is less important than the need to cull the herd as quickly and efficiently as possible. The tension between these two perspectives hung in the air at the discussion.
Feehan explained that hunting regulations don’t apply for DDPs, and the permits are specifically issued for deer management, not trophy hunting. So far, 43 deer have been taken under a DDP on the Island, three of which had antlers with more than four points.
Chandler asked Feehan whether or not there was a timeline when, if Island hunters couldn’t get the herd down 70 percent, alternative methods would be used.
Feehan didn’t give a straight answer, but said there is no current plan in place. “I don’t think it is that black-and-white for every group … But there are also many other folks on [the Island] who are coming at this from other perspectives, and they also have a voice. And frankly, Martha’s Vineyard has a significant amount of pull just on the realities of being in a place with [a] unique set of constituents, and that also means that there are more pressures that come with that, and so there is an immense amount of community push to be able to do something about the situation,” Feehan said.
When asked about sharpshooters, Virginia Barbatti, executive director of Tick Free MV, who was unable to attend the forum, said, “We’re looking at every tool available under state law. MassWildlife regulates deer management in the commonwealth, and any additional methods would involve them and our community.”
Sharpshooters, Feehan said, don’t work efficiently at low densities of deer. Though it’s counterintuitive, Feehan said, should they get the herd down 70 percent, that wouldn’t be a viable option. Monhegan Island, a small island in Maine where sharpshooters killed off every deer in a fight against Lyme disease, was brought up, but Patrick Roden-Reynolds, tick biologist and an advisor to Tick Free MV, said, “By no means are we talking about eliminating, eradicating deer.”
Barbatti said when asked by The Times about alternative methods like prescribed burns and chemical treatments for ticks, that their goal this season is to kill more deer, and knows that there won’t be a 70 percent drop in one year. A manageable amount of deer is the start, she said. “Ultimately, we will need an integrated tick-management plan that includes multiple interventions, and we’ll monitor what’s available and feasible for our community to consider as we go,” she added.
If there is a significant reduction in deer, Joseph Capece, president of the MV Hunt Club, said at the forum that he didn’t think prescribed burns would work to get rid of ticks, because that only works on large tracts of land, and the insurance is expensive. Ticks found in people’s yards are the problem, and logistically, they can’t “smoke out downtown Edgartown” in the summer, and there are risks because “our ecosystem here is made to burn,” Capece said. Lone star ticks also have proven to increase after prescribed burns. Feehan also previously discussed at a talk on the Island that sterilization only works in areas smaller than Martha’s Vineyard, and is also very expensive.
Chemical treatments on hosts, however, are on the table, and sprays that mitigate or kill ticks are already in use across the Island. It would supplement a reduction of deer, however, because less deer would make treatments more efficient and effective, and mean fewer chemicals in the environment, Feehan said. Host-targeted strategies, like four-poster devices, moxidectin-treated baits, and other treatments still in development, are possible.
“There’s no perfect solution, and a lot of what we’re having to do is think through a lot of imperfect solutions,” Feehan said at the end of the discussion to the hunters. “What is the best combination available, and what are the worst solutions that we don’t want to be a part of the final package … hunting from our perspective is a critical part of this. [MassWildlife is going to] continue to advocate for it, and it’s critical from the local community side that you all do everything you can to also be successful, because you’re advocating for yourself in that regard as well.”
“I think that’s probably the best I can say for this whole solution,” Feehan added.
There are a variety of reasons that the state manages deer, and while that includes public safety, such as vehicle collisions and tick-borne diseases, the primary objective, Feehan said, is the impacts of an overabundance of deer on the ecosystem, such as a loss of forest regeneration. It is not the propagation of ticks. Agricultural impacts and subsequent economic impacts to farmers are also objectives of the state.
The state views 12 to 18 deer per square mile as ideal, especially in terms of forest ecology. Long-term, Feehan said, with more than 50 deer per square mile, an entire forest can be at risk, and on the Island, state and Tick Free MV numbers put the density between 53 and 55 deer per square mile. Though the 12-to-18 number isn’t necessarily used for ticks, that is the threshold in which Tick Free MV has based the goal. On the Island, coastal erosion impacts are also tracked. When a lot of deer browse coastal vegetation, like beach grass and salt marshes, they tear down the Island’s only defense against erosion from heavy storms and high tide, already driven by climate change, and put the Island at risk for events like the potential storm this weekend.
Though that isn’t how it typically manages the deer herd, tick abundance might push MassWildlife to take actions it normally wouldn’t take, Feehan said at the discussion.
Massachusetts, as well as every other state in the country, Feehan said, sees hunter-harvest as the primary mode of management. “Hunting alone is the most efficient method for management, because you’re having hunters who are paying for the right, being able to spend an immense amount of time on their own, being able to harvest deer, and effectively will always make up the majority of the harvest in Massachusetts,” Feehan said.
And in an attempt to bolster the tradition, the state has added new seasons, and then extended seasons, and then made more permits available to Island hunters; they’ve also removed visibility requirements for transported deer and on-Island deer check, removed a daily bag limit, and removed a ban on use of decoys in archery season. Free replacement tags were also awarded to hunters who donated deer; this year, for every two deer donated, a hunter gets an either-sex tag, which is the first bonus buck incentive in the state. (Hunters are allowed an unlimited amount of does, and two bucks.) MassWildlife and Feehan also aided Tick Free MV and the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society in their efforts to increase the Island’s meat-processing capacity through a facility recently approved by the West Tisbury planning board with conditions.
And that’s so far seemed to help. Despite fewer and fewer hunters each year, Feehan said, there have been record harvests on the Island.
“The harvests have been tracking upward for a very long time, and continuing to move upward as we’ve had increasing densities, even though the islands have been losing hunters actually at a faster clip than the mainland,” Feehan said.
Last year, the first winter season approved for the Island, took place from Jan. 1 to Feb. 14; more than 330 deer were taken between Martha’s Vineyard (172) and Nantucket. It would’ve been the Island’s ninth highest harvest sans the extra month-and-a-half, but through the additional season, last year was the second-highest season, behind only 2018.
So far, in the extended season that started Sept. 21, Roden-Reynolds, who administers the deer cooler at the Agricultural Society, already reports a strong season, and has had 18 deer dropped off, as of Wednesday, Sept. 23, around 11 am.
The state and Tick Free MV are also behind efforts at the state legislature to make hunting more accessible, such as Sunday hunting, expanded access of crossbows, and reduced setbacks, or distance from a dwelling, for bowhunting, as well. The legislation requires statutory changes and a signature by the governor, who already publicly supported them.
“On the legislative front, all I’d say is this is the furthest we’ve ever gotten,” Feehan said, and asked the room to keep his position in mind. “We have never even come close to having this actually have a vote, let alone actually pass in a chamber in Boston.” An update the laws are still under consideration by the state legislature.
But there remain concerns that ticks won’t go away even if a majority of the deer herd does, and hunters in the room questioned why they are asked to kill so many when there might not be a direct result.
Black-legged ticks, also known as deer ticks, don’t have a direct relationship to white-tailed deer, but “once you get to a certain threshold of deer density, there’s enough deer to be able to host them, for them to saturate the environment with new black-legged ticks via reproduction,” Feehan said. With black-legged ticks, you have to drop below 12 deer per square mile to see any reduction, Feehan said.
But the same isn’t known for lone star ticks. “What’s not known at this point is how far you have to actually get densities to actually drop with lone stars,” Feehan said.
“Even if you got rid of almost all of the deer on the Island, you got rid of 95 percent of the deer, there would likely be little to no reduction in terms of lone star ticks, unless there are other strategies, like treatment, included,” Feehan said at a talk in May.
What is known is that lone stars almost exclusively reproduce on deer. The general idea, Roden-Reynolds said, “is [to] reduce that bottleneck of their reproductive cycle, where they require a large body host, typically deer. It reduces their success in producing new larvae, new nymphs that we’re experiencing year after year.”
Chandler said that he understands that his perspective might be seen as biased because he is a hunter, but he still wants more science.
“If you told me there was undeniable proof that ticks were eliminated forever, I would do it,” Chandler said to The Times about an eradication of deer. “I would support the effort. I don’t have it in me to do that much killing.”
