Tick Free MV (TFMV) announced Thursday that the nonprofit will underwrite the cost to legally dispose of deer carcasses at the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse Disposal and Resource Recovery District, a new initiative that solves a prolonged issue for Island hunters.
A carcass must be in a heavy contractor bag, and hunters have to identify their affiliation with TFMV at the weigh-in station and sign a slip for a record of disposals.
The move is a response to barriers brought up by hunters this fall. At an informal discussion of hunters in September, hunters noted there wasn’t a place to legally dispose of any portion of a deer on the Island.
Many of them questioned why they couldn’t dump a carcass legally despite the fact that they legally hunt deer and are even encouraged to harvest as much as they can in a fight against ticks and tick-borne conditions. Hunters have either composted the remains, buried them, returned them to the forest, which can create other problems, or taken them to the dump in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” fashion.
Mark Davis, manager of the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse Disposal and Resource Recovery District in Edgartown for about a year, said that Phil Hale, on the board of TFMV, approached him about the possibility of this new initiative. Davis said he checked with the state Department of Environmental Protection, who said disposal of deer carcasses wasn’t a problem. The previous Refuse District manager thought he couldn’t accept deer carcasses, Davis said.
The carcasses go in with the trash, which all ends up at the Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility in Rochester, a facility that turns waste to energy. Davis said they’ve already received one carcass.
“It’s always gratifying but often not easy to identify a problem and find a simple solution,” Virginia Barbatti, TFMV’s executive director, said in the release. “We heard repeatedly from hunters about the lack of options for carcass disposal here. This is what open dialogue is all about – seeing where we can add value and finding a way forward.”
On Nantucket, where there are no scavengers and also has an abundant deer herd and prevalence of tick-borne conditions, carcasses are accepted for free at several waste stations.
