Nantucket has been a summer vacation destination for generations, but when winter arrives, the island's year-round residents get down to the business of living their lives and enjoying the natural beauty of the island.
In February 2005, when big-game hunters converged on the island to participate in Nantucket's first February deer hunt, it came as a shock to the sleepy, off-season community. Fortunately, local residents and supporters of The HSUS, among others, convinced the state Fish and Game Board to eliminate this bloody spectacle before it could happen again.
A Public at Risk
Residents reported numerous safety problems with the hunt. Several hunters ventured too close to houses, and even a school, apparently because of their unfamiliarity with the island. Police arrested three hunters for trespassing on land marked "No Hunting," and for hunting in camouflage rather than in blaze orange. Someone shot a vehicle, and the Nantucket newspaper, The Inquirer and Mirror, reported that the Nantucket Police Department received nearly 100 complaints concerning the hunt.
Flawed Logic
The HSUS and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) tried to prevent the ill-conceived hunt before it occurred, during a hearing of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Board. The data available didn't support the supposed reason for the hunt: that increasing deer mortality would decrease the incidence of Lyme disease, which is carried by ticks that live one stage of their lives on mice and another on deer. The agency supervised by the board, the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, lacked an accurate estimate of the deer population on Nantucket. Their biologists also had not completed a review of research to evaluate to what extent a reduction in the deer population would reduce long-term human exposure rates to Lyme. In addition, the island already has a 12-day fall shotgun season for deer.
The rationale behind hunting deer in the winter, when the bucks have lost their antlers, is that hunters will kill relatively equal numbers of does and bucks, diminishing the population's reproductive capabilities and decreasing the number of animals more substantially than if bucks alone were killed. However, this hunt likely had little impact on the ticks' reproductive cycle because it occurred months after the ticks have already mated and dropped off the deer.
"There is no scientific backing for the assertion that this hunt will reduce the incidence of Lyme disease in people," said Laura Simon, field director of The HSUS's Urban Wildlife Program. "Actually, what scientific studies do show is that even when you take out as much as 75% of a deer population, the impact on the tick population is negligible."
From an animal protection perspective, this endeavor was also troublesome. In Nantucket, many of the does are pregnant in February, and would otherwise give birth as early as late March or April. Furthermore, chasing deer in the heart of winter can increase stress in the herds at a time when their fat reserves are lowest, making the surviving deer more vulnerable to parasites, disease, and possibly starvation.
The Lyme Factor
Scientists and The HSUS contended that a deer hunt also diverts attention from other, more effective means of preventing Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in humans.
"The four-poster deer station may reduce the number of deer ticks in a deer habitat without killing deer," said Dave Simser, an entomologist at the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. Four-poster stations use corn to entice deer to walk through insecticide applicators, killing the ticks they carry.
Other approaches include public education on repellents and other preventative measures, elimination of landscape features that increase tick exposure, and installation of bait boxes for mice that contain insecticide dispensers.
Simon agrees. "There are far better, more effective ways to reduce Lyme disease than killing deer," she said. "Maxforce bait boxes for mice, or four-poster feeding stations for deer are ingenious because they attract the tick's primary hosts with a food bait while applying an acaricide to the animals while they feed. The result is that more than 90% of ticks are killed on the vast majority, 85-90%, of the hosts. The incidence of Lyme disease decreases as the tick population plummets."
You Helped End This Hunt
Nantucketers disliked the February deer hunt so strongly that local animal protection advocates and hunters alike convinced the Board of Selectmen to request that the state rescind the hunt. In response, the state held a public hearing in November 2005, where The HSUS and members of the public convinced the Fish and Game Board to eliminate the hunt for good.
Stalking deer in the heart of winter is inhumane. Thanks to your help, the involvement of the local community, and the courage of the town selectmen, the people of Nantucket will no longer have to bear witness to this carnage.
