Deer hunting expanded

The Conservation Commission recently approved adding another public conservation area to the town’s deer hunting program. Fosters Island at Pomp’s Pond, an isolated 51-acre area surrounded by wetlands and the Shawsheen River, will now be open to bow-and-arrow deer hunters, said Robert Douglas, conservation director. Fosters Island is heavily grazed by deer, as evident by hardwood tree seedlings that have been consumed there, with the exception of young pines, which deer don’t like to eat, Douglas said. Last year, deer hunting was approved in the public reservation areas of Bald Hill, Wood Hill, Haggetts Pond, and Fish Brook. The town’s deer hunt will coincide with the state’s season schedule from Oct. 17-Dec. 31.