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Cold, Hard Facts of Northern Maine's Case of the Disappearing Deer Herd

January 05, 2010 - The harvest for last fall's deer hunt is expected to be down in Maine when the numbers are calculated. And while Maine state deer biologist Lee Kantar won't give a hint just how low, he's starting to point to what might be the future of northern Maine's deer herd.

Look north, way north ... like, across the border.

"People want to compare us to other states. It's apples to oranges," Kantar said. "When you start getting into the nuances between all states and the provinces, it's hard to compare two (places), but overall, New Brunswick has a lot more similarities and environmental conditions to northern Maine."

On Jan. 13, Maine's wildlife biologists from across the state will convene to decide what to do about the diminishing whitetail population up north.

But Kantar said comparing northern Maine to New Brunswick sheds some light on the reality for the deer herd in northern Maine – which is to say, it is never going to look like it does in southern Maine, where there are some 18 to 20 deer per square mile.

In contrast, there are as few as two deer per square mile in Aroostook County.

The chief challenge whitetail deer face in northern Maine and Canada, where the species is at the far northern end of its range, is winter.

When there is a brutal winter – a long, cold season with deep snowpack – the whitetail deer population suffers. And when that happens in back-to-back years, as it did in the winters of 2007-08 and 2008-09, they will struggle to recover, Kantar said.

This is evidenced in New Brunswick, where the deer hunting season was closed in seven of 27 hunting districts in 1993. Since 2006, only three of the seven districts have opened again.

Northern Maine hunters fearing a similar fate may take comfort in the fact that Kantar said closing a season is no solution, as proven in 1971 when the herd did not rebound after a closed season up north.

Kantar said the reality is that deer will never catch a break in northern Maine with coyote predation, the loss of deer yards resulting from forestland changing hands, and most of all the remarkably tough winters.

All you need for proof is the example across the St. John River in Canada, where the four hunting districts have remained closed since 1993. The picture for the future there is not looking any better.

"We're looking at the future and next year, and we're looking at more cutbacks likely in the areas that we do have antler-less deer hunting," said Kevin Craig, manager of New Brunswick's big game program. "The other thing we may look at is reducing the length of the season in areas open to hunting.

"Pretty much across their range, winter is the limiting factor. Winter conditions drive all other factors."

For decades, whitetail numbers in northern Maine have declined. That was the reason for the introduction in 1986 of the any-deer permit, which lets hunters take a doe. It helped the state decrease the herd in southern Maine – and, by the same token, increase it by decreasing the permits.

But while that works in south-central Maine, deer face more challenges up north, where Kantar fears there isn't a way to jump-start the population.

"In southern and central Maine, in good deer country, we have the ability to respond to tougher winters and the ability to increase and decrease the population. We don't have that in the rest of the state," he said.

In two weeks, state biologists will be trying to figure out what they can do in northern Maine to help the whitetail herd. "It's all stuff we've been working on in the past. We'll talk about a lot, everything deer," Kantar said.


DEIRDRE FLEMING, Portland Press Herald, January 3, 2010


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