Southwestern Maine Hunting Report: December 7, 2007
We are currently in the midst of the statewide trapping season. The beaver trapping season began this week in WMD 15 around Fryeburg and will open on December 15 in WMD’s 20-24. High precipitation during October and November has elicited many calls to the regional office with concern of flooding from beaver flowages. Once the trapping season opens, these issues can be addressed through recreational trapping. Prior to this, we work with our Animal Damage Control agents to modify the flowage level or trap and relocate individual beaver.
The beaver is a significant player in the natural and cultural history of North America. The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony had established a profitable fur trade with Indians in Maine, via the Kennebec River, in the 17th century. Beaver pelts were a major export to England at this time. Later, in the 1800′s, the market for beaver fur encouraged the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the quest for the Northwest Passage and European settlement of the present-day western United States. These trappers were frontiersman such as John Colter, or part of the elite French-Canadian Voyageurs, who plied the waters from Montreal to Winnipeg with a canoe full of furs. Today’s trappers play an important role in wildlife management through a regulated trapping season. Trapping allows us to reach a compromise between the creation of high value wetlands for a variety of species and human tolerance of beaver and the flowages that can result in property or road damage. Trapping also provides unique insight into the daily habitats of wildlife that are best understood in the woods and waters where they live.
The expanded archery season for deer continues in parts of Region A, and in Wells, there is a special archery hunt to reduce the deer population in the Wells Reserve. This is a collaborative effort between IFW, The Town of Wells, Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Rachel Carson NWR and the Maine Bowhunters Association.
The hunt continues through December 29. There will be no hunting December 24-26 in consideration of the holidays.
The hunt occurs on property managed by the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, and select locations on Drakes Island with landowner permission. These areas — which are part of a State of Maine-designated wildlife sanctuary — are not open to public hunting. As in past years, participants in this hunt are selected from qualifying members of the Maine Bowhunters Association’s “Bowhunters Landowners Information Program” (BLIP). There are 30 hunters who have been selected and three alternates.
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been working for over seven years with the Wells Reserve, Rachel Carson Refuge, Drakes Island residents, and the Town of Wells on the issue of deer overpopulation in our area. There is substantial agreement among the partners and many area residents that the deer population is much higher than the habitat can support, and that it would continue to climb if efforts are not made to control numbers. A soaring deer population has negative implications for public health and the maintenance of natural communities.
To address the issue, IFW launched this special hunt in 2002, with full support of the Wells Board of Selectmen, the Wells Reserve Management Authority, Wells Reserve Resource Advisory Committee, Rachel Carson Refuge, and area residents. The purpose of this regulated hunt is to reduce the deer population in an area of approximately 1-2 square miles from an initial density estimated at nearly 100 deer/sq.mile to a population of 20-25 deer/sq.mile.