Deer densities are down significantly — 30% over the last four years, according to a state count in selected areas across Fairfield County. And Ridgefield’s deer committee is proposing a controlled hunt on 12 areas of town land.
The Conservation Commission, while approving the deer committee’s plans for this year’s town hunt, is calling for a more organized tracking of deer takes on the various town lands hunted.
The plans for the controlled hunt are reviewed and approved each year by the Board of Selectmen, which must take up deer committee’s recommendations soon if the hunt is to proceed as planned in mid-October.
“There’s no doubt that the program has been a successful one,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
Ridgefield had 194 deer taken by hunters in the 2012 season, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), a count that includes hunting on state and private land as well as the town open spaces. Of 169 towns in Connecticut, only eight had higher totals in 2012, according to figures from DEEP wildlife biologist Andrew LaBonte.
The town deer hunt regularly prompts controversy.
“I do know that based on the activity during last year’s discussion, we discussed the possibility of cutting back,” Mr. Marconi said.
The Conservation Commission on Monday night approved final wording of a letter that it is sending to both the Board of Selectman and the Deer Management Committee, calling for a more ambitious and organized tracking of deer hunting on town land.
“After our meeting on July 8th, it was evident that the committee’s reporting continues to be extremely limited and general in nature and unacceptable to the Conservation Commission. Therefore, this year the RCC will institute an intensive and careful review after the 2013-14 hunt to examine specific, detailed results and determine whether the commission will continue its support of the annual hunt,” the letter says.
“We have requested, on an annual basis, detailed reports on both the Ridgefield hunt overall and also for specific numbers from each area hunted, but the committee consistently fails to comply.”
Rather than the state’s townwide numbers, the Conservation Commission wants property-by-property figures on the town parcels that are hunted.
“To remedy this situation, we have developed a detailed, comprehensive reporting form that we ask each hunter and the committee to complete at the end of the season,” the commission’s letter says.
The commission also proposes the two agencies collaborate on “setting goals for the next hunting season” and asks that the deer committee present the information on the hunt results at different locations within 30-45 days of the annual hunt’s end.
“It is our hope that through the implementation and completion of this new reporting structure, the RCC will have the tangible statistics and information needed to better evaluate and assess the efficacy of the hunt,” the letter says. “We will then be able to determine whether to continue its support in the years ahead.”
To show the success of Ridgefield’s town hunt in combination with hunts in other towns and changes in state policy, Deer Committee Chairman Tom Belote pointed to a state comparison of 2009 and 2013 deer counts showing a 30% decline from 62 to 43 deer per square mile.
Howard Kilpatrick of the DEEP Wildlife Division described the program in the May-June issue of From the Field:
“In 2009 the Wildlife Division initiated an intense aerial survey to monitor changes in deer densities over time,” Mr. Kilpatrick wrote.
“The survey involves counting deer along six 10-mile long transects multiple times during the same winter. Estimated deer densities are derived by taking the number of deer observed and multiplying it by two to correct for deer concealed in vegetation.
“The survey was conducted four times in 2009 and the estimated deer densities for Fairfield County averaged 62.0 deer per square mile. This survey was repeated two times in 2013. Estimated deer densities in 2013 dropped to 43.2 deer per square mile.
“The drop in deer densities was statistically significant and it appears that a combination of state and local efforts to reduce the deer population in Fairfield County is paying off,” Mr. Kilpatrick wrote
Conservation Commission member Ben Oko said a major part of the concern with the town hunt is that it may not be achieving the goal of reducing deer-damage to major town open spaces.
“We’ve asked them in this letter for a lot of information going forward, to really get a handle on whether it makes a lot of sense to close town land for hunting, for the season,” Mr. Oko said
“We always have said that we should re-evaluate this program after a five-year period, and it’s been more than that now.
“We want to keep the deer pressure off our major open spaces,” he added. “Our goal is to decrease the deer population to take the pressure off the browse in the environment. The way they hunt is not consistent with that.”
Mr. Belote said the main property the Conservation Commission wants hunted — Hemlock Hills — just doesn’t work out as a place to hunt.
“The deer committee decided for a number of years now that wasn’t advantageous to hunt that property under the existing rules of the hunt,” he said. “The parcel gets too much pressure from hikers and bikers and dog walkers, and what it does is puts the deer into nocturnal patterns, and in view of the food resources, the deer have been hanging on the edge of Hemlock Hills, more toward the houses, where they can get vegetation to eat.
“Under the existing rules that prohibit us from hunting on weekends, on days the schools are closed, on holidays, we were only getting like 25 days of hunting, and to close that property off from October to December for 35 days wasn’t making sense,” Mr. Belote said. “It was causing more aggravation and frustration than it was worth.”
The deer committee’s recommended town hunting program for 2013 involves 12 parcels, some open for different seasons among the state allowed archery, shotgun and muzzleloader seasons.
The recommended hunting parcels, still to be reviewed and approved by the Board of Selectman, are:
- Levy Park: archery only, morning only.
- Shadow Lake archery, shotgun, and muzzleloader.
- Laurel Lane: archery, shotgun, muzzleloader.
- Linden Lane: archery only.
- Scodon Drive/Pheasant Lane: archery only.
- Old Trolley Road: archery only
- Ridgefield Golf Course: archery only
- Reed Park: archery, shotgun, muzzleloader.
- Spectacle swamp, (small piece) archery only; (large piece) archery and shotgun.
- Schlumberger: archery, shotgun and muzzleloader
- Keeler Court, archery only.
- Ledges Road open space: archery, shotgun, muzzleloader.