With deer and moose hunting season approaching, it is the lack of available land rather than a scarcity of animals that will likely pose a challenge to Lakes Region hunters.
Some Lakes Region hunters, as well as state officials, have noticed an increase in the amount of land posted against trespassing, while some landowners are concerned about people abusing their property. With moose hunting coming to areas of southern Maine for the first time this November, finding places to hunt could be a challenge.
Steve Widger and Brett Levin, both avid hunters who live in Standish, are concerned that development pressures and some landowners’ unfamiliarity and discomfort with hunting is cutting down on the land available to them for recreation.
“It’s just getting harder and harder down here to find places to go,” Widger said.
“People get nervous,” Levin explained, “especially if they’re not hunters and don’t have experience with firearms.”
Some irresponsible hunters give a bad name to everyone else, Widger said, leading to less land available to all hunters.
“Every time someone does something stupid, they post another 100 acres,” Widger said.
Landowners’ concerns
Tom Doak, director of the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine, said most landowners he talks with are supportive of the idea of hunting, but sometimes find their land abused.
He has experienced a number of problems at his own property in Belfast and Swanville, including litter, damage from trucks and all terrain vehicles driving across his property, deer stands nailed into his trees and Christmas trees cut and hauled away. Doak’s land is not posted because leaving his land open to use is something he believes in.
“What’s keeping land open is the landowners’ belief that this is the right thing to do,” Doak said, adding that landowners get no benefit from opening their property to others.
Levin, who teaches hunter safety classes for the Standish Recreation Department, stressed the importance for hunters to reach out to landowners and ask their permission to use their land, even if it isn’t posted.
The first moose hunt
Widger, 58, got a moose permit this fall after putting his name in the lottery unsuccessfully for many years. He will have the opportunity to hunt for moose in a district including a broad range of towns in Cumberland, York, Oxford and Androscoggin counties in November, during the same time period as the season for hunting deer with firearms.
Though this district wasn’t his first choice of location, he is optimistic he will find a moose. Widger said he generally sees moose every other time he goes out and has a good idea of where to find them.
Widger said when he goes out hunting for deer, bear, partridge, moose or other animals, he could care less whether or not he is successful. “I just like being outside,” Widger said. “You can relax.”
A limited number of moose hunting licenses were given out for November hunting in four wildlife management districts in southern Maine this year. District 15, where Widger will hunt, contains parts of Casco, Naples, Sebago and Bridgton. The other districts consist of areas northeast of Lewiston and Auburn, northeast of Augusta and on both sides of the Penobscot River from the Blue Hill peninsula to the Bangor area.
Deer and moose biologist for Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Lee Kantar said opening these areas to moose hunting was a decision based in large part on public input. In District 15, the purpose of the new licenses is to keep moose at a low population in order to minimize road collisions, Kantar said, adding that the moose population in southern Maine can withstand the 135 permits given out this year for all four districts.
Sandy Ritchie, a wildlife biologist with Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said the department is proceeding conservatively to begin to address safety issues with the moose population, and may increase the number of permits given out or expand into other regions in the future.
According to Maine Department of Transportation statistics, there were an average of 93 road collisions involving moose per year in the area encompassing Oxford, York and Cumberland counties from 2005 to 2007, with no fatalities.
Taking into account public interest is a balancing act, Kantar said, especially in populated areas of southern Maine, such as District 15. Though many people want to maintain deer and moose populations for hunting and viewing, others want the minimize vehicle collisions, browsing and Lyme disease.
“I think (the moose hunt) is a great idea because of the traffic accidents that we have,” said Sebago hunter and taxidermist Gene Bahr, adding that he doesn’t foresee the harvest depleting or harming the moose population.
Hunting for moose in southern Maine will be very different than hunting moose in northern Maine, Ritchie said. For one thing, the success rate is expected to be lower. It will also be more important for hunters to ensure they have landowner permission and a plan for how to get the moose out of the woods.
In northern Maine there are large tracts of land, which often have many logging roads crisscrossing them. In southern Maine, it could be more difficult to extract a moose without damaging private property.
Respecting the land
“Over 90 percent of outdoor activities are on private land, that’s why we stress to everyone to show respect to the land you’re using,” said Bob Duplessie, director of recreational access and landowner relations for the Department of Conservation and Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Duplessie’s job is to improve relationships between landowners and recreational users such as hunters, anglers and snowmobilers.
Especially in southern Maine there seems to be more land posted Duplessie said, though a lot of the decrease in hunting land has to do with sprawl.
Less land accessible for recreation can pose a problem not only for the hunters, but for wildlife management goals as well, said Ritchie. Given that management goals for many species include some level of harvest, Ritchie said it is difficult to meet those goals with less access to land for hunters to perform the harvest.
Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine George Smith agreed that the privilege of access to private land is very important to outdoor enthusiasts.
“It’s been an epidemic of posting in the last 15-20 years,” said Smith, who has been active in the sportsman’s alliance since the 1970s. “It’s the biggest issue of all.”
“We really depend on private land,” Smith said, adding that increased development of wild land has had a huge impact on habitat. Smith said building good relationships with landowners will be especially critical during the upcoming expansion of moose hunting to parts of southern Maine.
“This is the education piece that we really want to impress on hunters,” Duplessie said. “Please ask landowners.”
For his job, Duplessie works to educate recreational users such as hunters, all terrain vehicle users and wildlife viewers and talks with landowners about their concerns. Though private land is legally open for use in Maine unless it is explicitly posted, Duplessie said, he recommends hunters ask permission first.
The reasons that landowners choose to post their land varies, Duplessie said. Sometimes a younger generation doesn’t understand the traditional use of the land and other times someone has done something to abuse their land. Some landowners have had problems but don’t want to post their land against trespassers, in which case Duplessie suggests a sign that tells hunters to ask for permission.
In surveys conducted by the Sportsmans’ Alliance of Maine, landowners have cited three main reasons for posting their land. The number one reason is because of illegal dumping of waste, Smith said. Other landowners post their land because access has been abused in the past or to keep the opportunity to hunt to themselves or a group of hunters leasing the property, a practice common in other states.
Having both hunted since they were children, Levin and Widger talked passionately about the enjoyment they get from spending time outdoors.
In his work with Standish Recreation, Levin tries to inspire young people to enjoy the outdoors as well, and to learn about nature. Being a good hunter involves really understanding the prey species, Levin said. The same is probably true for being a conservationist.
“It’s hard to manage this resource if no one uses it or cares about it,” Levin said. “Getting kids outdoors is so important.”
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