Deer in headlines
The hunt is on in Nantucket as news of alarming Lyme disease rate causes concern
NANTUCKET -- Tick, tick, tick. For many Island residents, time's up for the deer population in Nantucket County, which has the highest incidences of Lyme disease in the United States, a fact many attribute to the animal's ticks.
"They've gone from being cutesy deer to antlered rats," said Dr. Timothy Lepore, medical director of Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where 215 reported cases of tick-related diseases were recorded this year. "Each deer is loaded with ticks. This is a significant public health issue."
Nantucket is in the midst of a 12-day shotgun season for deer, which ends Saturday. There are an estimated 1,600-2,400 deer on the island, or about 40-60 per square mile, the highest density in the state, according to Tom O'Shea, assistant director of wildlife at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. That's roughly one deer for every three winter residents.
Last week, Lepore, shotgun in hand, went to his favorite hunting spot and found eight hunters already there.
The hospital-sponsored Tick Awareness Group and the Nantucket Board of Selectmen have asked the Massachusetts DFW to grant a special second deer hunting season in February to further reduce the herd. A decision will be announced Dec. 20.
But the request is controversial. At a public meeting Nov. 22, numerous solutions were proposed to reduce the public risk. Hiring a sharpshooter, shooting deer with sterilization darts, and dusting them with insecticide were all debated. Animal rights groups call the extended hunting season proposal "preposterous" and even Nantucket hunting groups don't want outsiders infringing on their home turf.
The current deer hunt has been met with less hostility from the public than it was decades ago. "A lot more people want us to hunt because of Lyme disease and the deer eating their shrubs," said Stoney Holmes of Plymouth. "People call me up and tell me the deer ate $10,000 worth of shrubbery," said Sgt. Dean Belanger of the Environmental Police.
Stacy Fusaro, a local associate at the Egan Institute of Marine Studies, has mixed feelings. "They are gorgeous, but I don't like them eating my garden, dropping deer ticks that I worry will get on my kids," she said. "It makes sense to weed out the herd. They don't have the space they used to." Karin Sheppard, a Nantucket weaver, agreed. "It's a terrible thing to say, but I have Lyme disease, and to think that beautiful deer gave me this. Hunting is a necessary thing." Each hunter is allowed to take two antlered deer and a limitless number of unantlered deer, provided they get a $5-per-deer permit in advance. On the first day of hunting, 92 deer were recorded at the busiest check-in station in the state. The deer density population has doubled since the 1980s. "There are no predators for them here," said Lepore. "No coyotes, no wolves on Nantucket. It's either the hunters or the SUVs." DFW officials say a 50 percent reduction in deer would be optimum.
"The hunt is preposterous," said Jessica Almy, a Cape Cod wildlife advocate for the Humane Society of the United States. "Why is the Division of Fish and Wildlife handling this? Why isn't the Dept. of Public Health dealing with the Lyme disease? It's a strange solution to a public health problem."
Almy said the hunt will not end Lyme disease on Nantucket.
"A small and temporary reduction in the herd will hardly have an effect on deer ticks," said Almy, who suggested deer baiting stations currently being tested on Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, where the deer brushes against an insecticide-coated wall. "It has had some initial success." But the DFW said it has yet to see conclusive proof.
"There's no silver bullet," said O'Shea, who noted that a herd reduction campaign at Crane's Beach in Ipswich cut Lyme disease rates in half.
"I love to see them and take pictures of them," said John Ashley of Freetown, deer tick repellent on his pants and a shotgun on his shoulder out at Eel Point. "But I've been treated four times for Lyme disease. They are just like a crop, you have to harvest them."
On the second day of the hunt, two deer dart across Polpis Road, a blur of white-tailed beauties disappearing in the brush outside a cluster of houses, where they are temporarily safe because hunters are not allowed to shoot within 500 feet of a home. Police, however, have fielded complaints from residents.
Marie Claire Rochat, a local writer who lives in the Quidnet section, which is surrounded by the scrub oak cover of conservation land, is attired in orange as she jogs on a bike path.
"I have two young children," she said. "Hunting season scares me. I get scared when I hear shots go off. I don't want to be worried again in February."
Even some hunters are undecided.
"I have mixed emotions," said hunter Doug Smith, whose truck sports a bumper sticker that reads "Gun Control is A Steady Hand."
"I've had Lyme disease three times. The problem is not that the deer are increasing. The problem is their habitat is decreasing. There is less and less land available. I hate to see a natural herd depleted." 