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JellyFish
Dwindling species
N.H. deer hunters crowded out by expanding human population
By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff | December 3, 2006
HOLLIS, N.H. -- Walking through Spaulding Park Town Forest last Sunday, orange hunting vests on their backs and 12-gauge shotguns in their hands, Bob and Tom Dufresne saw four youngsters on mountain bikes, two women jogging, and one couple walking a very small, very annoying Yorkshire terrier. What they did not see was a deer.
"I don't even expect to get one when I come out nowadays," said Bob Dufresne, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation. "I'm out here as much for the sunrises and the sunsets as anything else."
Welcome to the strange new world of deer hunting in southern New Hampshire. A place where the deer are plentiful but where the land they browse has become so crowded that getting a clean shot -- or even a glimpse -- is becoming harder every year.
In the last 10 years, as development has inhaled broad swaths of southern New Hampshire, "No hunting" signs -- once a rare and disdained sight in these parts -- have become ubiquitous. The antihunting sentiment that has taken root here is fueled, hunters say, by people "from away" -- those who grew up far from the woods.
The result is that although the deer population statewide has been stable at about 81,000, wildlife officials see higher concentrations of deer in the rapidly developing south. That means more deer-related traffic accidents, more concern about Lyme disease, and an increase in the tension between hunters and folks who don't want them around.
Ed Briand, an 83-year-old hunter and gun shop owner in Nashua, has had his fill of this new breed of southern New Hampshire resident. He points to the homes of his neighbors near his shop. "They're from Massachusetts, they're from Massachusetts, and they're from Massachusetts," he said. "It's enough already."
In Hollis, a nearly century-old local hunting club has been shut down by new neighbors disturbed by the noise from rifle reports. In Londonderry, the Town Council last month narrowly defeated an ordinance that would have prohibited hunting on all town-owned land. And last month in Derry, a woman delivered a severed deer head to the home of a Fish and Game Department official to protest hunting on public property.
"Her message was to demonstrate that hunters are not good people and they don't have any concern for anybody else," said Stephen Nottonson, Fish and Game Department commissioner for Rockingham County, who received the severed head.
For landowners, there are three main concerns, said Charles Minor, who administrates the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department's landowner relations program: safety, animal rights, and land owner liability.
But there is also a growing concern about disrespect by hunters toward property owners, said Heather Peterson, who owns 370 acres in Peterborough. Peterson had always allowed hunters on her property. Then a group started using ATV's and practicing what she called unfair deer hunting. She posted no hunting signs without written permission three years ago.
"We're finding there's a new breed of hunters out there that are less respectful," she said. "It's really too bad."
Her neighbors have come to the same conclusion, she said. In the past three years, they have posted no hunting signs on about 2,000 acres, she said.
The town-owned Spaulding Forest, where the Dufresnes fruitlessly stalked their prey last week, is one of the last remaining public hunting lands in Hollis, a quickly growing suburb of Nashua. Traditionally, hunters have not had to rely on public land in this part of the state because private land owners have welcomed them. According to state law, any land not posted no hunting is open to hunters.
But so many of those signs have been popping up lately that last summer New Hampshire Fish and Game created a new program to reach out to new homeowners to dissuade them from posting the signs.
"It's a clash of cultures," said Mark Ellingwood, a wildlife biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. "A lot of these folks think that if they are prohibiting hunting they are doing something good for wildlife."
It's just the opposite, said Ellingwood. Hunters play a critical role in controlling a deer population that is thriving on the high-calorie landscaped buffet that accompan ies many new homes.
This deer problem in southern New Hampshire has created something of paradox. More deer on less land should mean better hunting. But heavily used parks and restrictions on private property have handcuffed hunters and created the opposite effect.
Last year in Rockingham County, permits were issued for 3,250 doe, said Nottonson, but only about 650 were actually killed. This year 5,500 permits have been issued to cull the population. The numbers of doe taken is not yet in.
"One of the biggest problems is the hunters can't get onto a lot of the property," Nottonson said. "And the deer are sharp. They learn where to go."
All this is compounded by fewer hunters. Deer hunting, once a rite of passage in New Hampshire, has been on a long and steady decline. The number of licensed hunters has dropped by a quarter in a decade -- from 81,458 in 1995 to 60,737 last year, according to the state.
"It's a matter of time, Dufresne said. "People just don't have it. They're too busy."
The public mood toward hunters continues to sour. Every year, Hollis Police Chief Russell Ux said, he gets more complaints about hunters than the year before.
"We get calls all the time from people who say they just saw a guy coming out of the woods with a gun," Ux said. The backlash against hunters is part of a larger set of growing pains driven by development. About 18,000 acres of forest in New Hampshire are cut down every year to make room for new homes and the businesses to support them.
For his part, Bob Dufresne has had several people -- all of whom, he suspects, are "from away" -- tell him he shouldn't be hunting on the same public land where he has been hunting for decades. They're wrong, but it's their supercilious manner that unnerves him, he says.
"In England, if you were caught killing the king's animal on the king's land, the hunter could be shot," Dufresne said. "Sometimes it feels like that's where we're headed."
Douglas Belkin can be reached at [email protected].
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/03/dwindling_species?mode=PF
N.H. deer hunters crowded out by expanding human population
By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff | December 3, 2006
HOLLIS, N.H. -- Walking through Spaulding Park Town Forest last Sunday, orange hunting vests on their backs and 12-gauge shotguns in their hands, Bob and Tom Dufresne saw four youngsters on mountain bikes, two women jogging, and one couple walking a very small, very annoying Yorkshire terrier. What they did not see was a deer.
"I don't even expect to get one when I come out nowadays," said Bob Dufresne, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation. "I'm out here as much for the sunrises and the sunsets as anything else."
Welcome to the strange new world of deer hunting in southern New Hampshire. A place where the deer are plentiful but where the land they browse has become so crowded that getting a clean shot -- or even a glimpse -- is becoming harder every year.
In the last 10 years, as development has inhaled broad swaths of southern New Hampshire, "No hunting" signs -- once a rare and disdained sight in these parts -- have become ubiquitous. The antihunting sentiment that has taken root here is fueled, hunters say, by people "from away" -- those who grew up far from the woods.
The result is that although the deer population statewide has been stable at about 81,000, wildlife officials see higher concentrations of deer in the rapidly developing south. That means more deer-related traffic accidents, more concern about Lyme disease, and an increase in the tension between hunters and folks who don't want them around.
Ed Briand, an 83-year-old hunter and gun shop owner in Nashua, has had his fill of this new breed of southern New Hampshire resident. He points to the homes of his neighbors near his shop. "They're from Massachusetts, they're from Massachusetts, and they're from Massachusetts," he said. "It's enough already."
In Hollis, a nearly century-old local hunting club has been shut down by new neighbors disturbed by the noise from rifle reports. In Londonderry, the Town Council last month narrowly defeated an ordinance that would have prohibited hunting on all town-owned land. And last month in Derry, a woman delivered a severed deer head to the home of a Fish and Game Department official to protest hunting on public property.
"Her message was to demonstrate that hunters are not good people and they don't have any concern for anybody else," said Stephen Nottonson, Fish and Game Department commissioner for Rockingham County, who received the severed head.
For landowners, there are three main concerns, said Charles Minor, who administrates the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department's landowner relations program: safety, animal rights, and land owner liability.
But there is also a growing concern about disrespect by hunters toward property owners, said Heather Peterson, who owns 370 acres in Peterborough. Peterson had always allowed hunters on her property. Then a group started using ATV's and practicing what she called unfair deer hunting. She posted no hunting signs without written permission three years ago.
"We're finding there's a new breed of hunters out there that are less respectful," she said. "It's really too bad."
Her neighbors have come to the same conclusion, she said. In the past three years, they have posted no hunting signs on about 2,000 acres, she said.
The town-owned Spaulding Forest, where the Dufresnes fruitlessly stalked their prey last week, is one of the last remaining public hunting lands in Hollis, a quickly growing suburb of Nashua. Traditionally, hunters have not had to rely on public land in this part of the state because private land owners have welcomed them. According to state law, any land not posted no hunting is open to hunters.
But so many of those signs have been popping up lately that last summer New Hampshire Fish and Game created a new program to reach out to new homeowners to dissuade them from posting the signs.
"It's a clash of cultures," said Mark Ellingwood, a wildlife biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. "A lot of these folks think that if they are prohibiting hunting they are doing something good for wildlife."
It's just the opposite, said Ellingwood. Hunters play a critical role in controlling a deer population that is thriving on the high-calorie landscaped buffet that accompan ies many new homes.
This deer problem in southern New Hampshire has created something of paradox. More deer on less land should mean better hunting. But heavily used parks and restrictions on private property have handcuffed hunters and created the opposite effect.
Last year in Rockingham County, permits were issued for 3,250 doe, said Nottonson, but only about 650 were actually killed. This year 5,500 permits have been issued to cull the population. The numbers of doe taken is not yet in.
"One of the biggest problems is the hunters can't get onto a lot of the property," Nottonson said. "And the deer are sharp. They learn where to go."
All this is compounded by fewer hunters. Deer hunting, once a rite of passage in New Hampshire, has been on a long and steady decline. The number of licensed hunters has dropped by a quarter in a decade -- from 81,458 in 1995 to 60,737 last year, according to the state.
"It's a matter of time, Dufresne said. "People just don't have it. They're too busy."
The public mood toward hunters continues to sour. Every year, Hollis Police Chief Russell Ux said, he gets more complaints about hunters than the year before.
"We get calls all the time from people who say they just saw a guy coming out of the woods with a gun," Ux said. The backlash against hunters is part of a larger set of growing pains driven by development. About 18,000 acres of forest in New Hampshire are cut down every year to make room for new homes and the businesses to support them.
For his part, Bob Dufresne has had several people -- all of whom, he suspects, are "from away" -- tell him he shouldn't be hunting on the same public land where he has been hunting for decades. They're wrong, but it's their supercilious manner that unnerves him, he says.
"In England, if you were caught killing the king's animal on the king's land, the hunter could be shot," Dufresne said. "Sometimes it feels like that's where we're headed."
Douglas Belkin can be reached at [email protected].
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/03/dwindling_species?mode=PF
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