BY MIMI HUCKINS ’21
On Nov. 13, 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation announced that the proposed expansion of deer hunting to Quabbin Park in Belchertown, Massachusetts would be cancelled. The press release cited a need of further research. The Pioneer Valley is no stranger to controversy around the expansion of hunting in the area. The argument remains as to whether the hunting of deer should be expanded to more land or less, and how necessary the hunting of deer is for the environment.
In Massachusetts, the deer population was historically controlled by their natural predators: mountain lions and wolves. Yet mountain lion and wolf populations have decreased significantly, allowing deer to overpopulate.
Deer are now more than ever causing public safety issues, such as often fatal car crashes, the increase of Lyme disease, ruining crops and damaging forest ecosystems which can have drastic effects on water quality. One of the most obvious effects deer density has on the Quabbin is water quality. The Quabbin reservoir provides water to the Boston area, so water quality is an important factor. The vegetation of the Quabbin reservoir acts as a natural filter.
Martha Hoopes, a professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College, recognizes the negative effects deer can have on an ecosystem. Hoopes says that deer greatly affect tree regeneration.
“If you think about the dynamics of a forest, they live a whole lot longer than we do. But just the same way that we have to have babies to replace dying people, all trees have to have young trees to replace dying trees,” Hoopes explained. “If you have a bunch of deer, then even if you get a lot of seedlings in that spot, you may not actually see them move up through the age classes.”
In areas where there is higher deer density, there are fewer younger trees, making the age structure of the forest far less diverse. One of the ways to prevent this damage is to increase the opportunities of one of their remaining predators: humans. Deer levels used to be regulated naturally by predators, but now that many of those larger predators aren’t as common, deer have been able to increase unnaturally in population.
“Now that we’ve entered the era of most of those non-human predators, we just don’t see that kind of control as much anymore,” Hoopes observed. “We have more fishers in area than we used to have, but they can only take down a small deer. We have more bobcats in there than we used to have, but again, bobcats are small and are not going to take down a big deer.”
Hoopes believes that deer hunting does have an impact in limiting the deer population. “One of the ways that hunting controls the population,” Hoopes said, “is not because some of these people are going out and taking home a hundred deer. It’s that a particular family might be taking home one, maybe two deer, but that you have so many families that are doing it that it leads to more control.”
Although hunting deer is a useful form of population control, it is not necessarily as accessible as one may think.
Mitch Hartley is a biologist and conservationist who works for the Department of the Interior. Hartley is also a hunter. In his eyes, the Pioneer Valley has not been as accommodating to hunters as it should be. In response, Hartley often hears people asking him why he can’t hunt elsewhere.
“I can’t drive half an hour if I only have an hour and a half to hunt before work,” Hartley said. “I find it really ironic when people tell me I should go use the big state lands; I think to myself, ‘why don’t you drive out of town to recreate?’ ‘Why don’t you go to Worcester? There’s a great bike path in Worcester. Why don’t you go walk your dog there?’ It’s literally the same thing. None of us have unlimited amounts of time.”
For hunting deer, Hartley sees the restrictions not just as a lack of space to hunt. “Massachusetts has the shortest deer hunting season in the United States, or it’s way up near the top,” he said.
“It’s a 12-day-long season, and there’s no Sunday hunting here. There’s no rifle hunting for deer, it is shotgun only, statewide. It’s quite restrictive compared to most states, including other New England states.”
Hartley witnessed this discourse when it came to possibly expanding deer hunting in Northampton. “For a lot of the people who showed up at that hearing, their issue was guns,” Hartley said. “They really were against guns — absolutely against guns. They were saying, ‘People say hunting is good for families but families should be doing something that doesn’t involve guns, guns are dangerous.’”
Hoopes also witnessed this viewpoint. “The reaction to hunting seems very much tied these days to our reaction to guns. There definitely seems to be a stronger acceptance for guns in more Republican areas and more push back against guns in more Democratic areas,” Hoopes said.
Hartley understands the train of thought, but doesn’t believe it completely overlaps with hunting. Hunting in Massachusetts is also done with bow and arrow, and in certain areas, only people with bow and arrow are allowed to hunt deer.
“They’re not really against hunting, they’re just against guns,” Hartley said
Opponents of deer hunting other than those who oppose guns include people against the killing of animals altogether.
“There’s people who are animal rights people who don’t think anyone should kill any animal including meat eaters,” Hartley said, “and in that there’s kind of no compromise.”
But Hartley also believes the opposition to hunting in the area also comes with a high degree of misunderstanding. Hartley observed the opposition having the mentality that “people go in [areas closed to hunting] and they shoot guns and they hunt and they’re not supposed to.”
Hartley believes it is unfair to lump all hunters in with the people who are breaking the law. “So you’re going to punish the people who follow the law by holding up a bunch of lawbreakers as an example?”he said with frustration.
Hoopes believes a large part of keeping hunting safe is awareness of what others are doing, and whether they are breaking the law. “One advantage of having hunting and having regulations around hunting is that people themselves reinforce regulations,” he said. “There’s like a strong sense of, ‘no, this is the way we do it.’ It’s better to have a ‘no, this is the way we do it than to have people out there poaching.”
Both Hartley and Hoopes agree that hunters themselves need to take responsibilities to promote safe and legal hunting and foster a hunting community that is respectful of other people’s land.
Regardless of the varying opinions on hunting, many seem to have a similar worry: safety. Hartley says that this worry is again based off a lot of misunderstandings.
“I think there’s this perception that if you open [land up to hunting] it’s just going to be like World War II out there,” he said. “Having grown up in a lot of places and lived in a lot of places with hunting I don’t think people realize how untrue that is,” Hartley said.
“This whole idea that there are hunting seasons year round so and there are going to be people out there all the time hunting, I think that’s misguided, it’s not realistic,” Hartley said.
Hoopes believes that safety is a real concern, hunters need to take responsibilities to maintain safety and regulations need to be made and kept t upkeep safety. “Once hunting is happening, it’s about hunting away from trails and things like that,” Hoopes said.
Yet, there is an even larger, less preventable danger. “What we can’t regulate is things like ticks. There’s a huge connection between acorn density, white footed mice, white-tailed deer and ticks. So the more deer we have, the more Lyme disease we have. And Lyme is a much bigger problem in this area right now than injury from hunting,” she said.
As a hiker herself, Hoopes has been sharing the land of the Pioneer Valley with hunters for years. “I have, upon occasion, come across hunters who are in full camouflage, and suddenly they step out and I’m like, ‘Oh, no, you were right there,” Hoopes recalled.
But when hiking in this mountainous region, hunters aren’t the only possibly dangerous thing one may encounter. “I’ve also come across lots of other things. When I’m hiking, I’ve bumped into bears and coyotes and fishers and deer and turkey and all kinds of things,” Hoopes said.
Although deer hunting is the most common form of deer population control, it is not the only option. It is possible to use methods of sterilization for deer to prevent further population increase.
“There are two alternatives to lethal control and there’s been a lot of research on suburban and urban deer and birth control,” Hartley said, but he admits this form of control can become expensive. “It’s a lot more expensive than hiring professional killers. There’s not a lot of oral contraceptives, or if there are, they have to be put out regularly. You either have to capture the deer and inject something into them like an IUD or whatever or you have to get this birth control to them regularly.”
Hartley believes funding that could go to this method of control could be better used elsewhere. “Those are costs that could be going to teachers and schools,” he said. Even aside from the money, Hoopes says that the birth control effects on deer are very limited.
When deer overpopulate, they don’t just cause damage to humans and the ecosystem, but they begin to cause damage to themselves. Overpopulation of deer often causes them to starve or get hit by cars. It can be argued that this is less humane than killing a deer, yet this is still subjective.
Hoopes observes that people’s responses to hunting and guns are often influenced by many factors. “There are people who grew up with hunting and think of hunting as a way to put food on their table and also think of hunting as a way that they acquired a real appreciation for and love for animals and for being outside, which seems totally counterproductive to people that don’t hunt,” Hoopes said. But regardless of cultural differences, communication is needed to create an understanding between the two groups.
“There has to be some balanced response to it,” Hoopes said. “I think it requires being able to have the conversation in order to come up with something that’s remotely sensible, but when the conversation is off limits, then we can’t act.”
In a place such as the Quabbin Reservoir where the deer populations directly affect the quality of water for a large amount of Massachusetts residents, this conversation needs to happen sooner rather than later. A press release from the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) states that this spring the DCR will reevaluate the deer populations at the Quabbin. If these populations remain too high after this year’s deer hunt, the DCR will consider opening the park for deer hunting next season. This process will include public outreach and a public meeting.