Voters get final say

Shaun Farrar

Mar 17, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Restaurant Barn.

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TREMONT—It takes time to reverse a 100-year-old rule, but after almost a year of planning, public hearings and input, and consultation with officials from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IFW), Tremont is close to doing just that.

At its meeting on March 16, Town Manager Jesse Dunbar informed the Tremont Select Board that the latest draft of the town’s deer hunting season proposal has received unofficial approval by IFW officials.

According to Nathan Webb, wildlife division director of IFW, the present ban on deer hunting was implemented by the 85th Maine Legislature and reference to a closed season on deer on Mount Desert Island (MDI) first appeared in 1931.

All other animals that can be legally hunted in Maine can also currently be hunted on MDI.

In his manager’s memo for the March 16 meeting, Dunbar wrote the response he received from IFW after submitting the town’s latest proposed plan.

“Our commissioner and other leadership staff have discussed the Tremont special hunt proposal at their senior staff meeting, and they have no concerns with the proposal moving forward,” he wrote. “The game warden, Lt. (lieutenant), and Sgt.(sergeant) for the area have also voiced their support. The lieutenant wanted to emphasize that restrictions on discharge in proximity to dwellings would still apply, so hunters need to be mindful of that. Otherwise, no major concerns on our end. Keep us updated, thanks.”

Back on April 3, 2025, Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) presented a bill, LD 1438, that he was sponsoring to the Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that would make it legal to hunt deer on Mount Desert Island.

Representative Faulkingham represents the towns of Franklin, Gouldsboro, Hancock, Sorrento, Sullivan, Winter Harbor, and Steuben.

The bill, cosponsored by Richard Mason (R-Lisbon), James Thorne (R-Carmel), and David Woodsome of (R-Waterboro) consisted of one short section. “Mount Desert Island deer hunting rulemaking. Resolved: That the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife shall adopt rules opening Mount Desert Island to deer hunting in accordance with the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 12, section 11402, subsection 4.”

It also contained a summary of substantially the same language. “This resolve directs the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to adopt rules opening Mount Desert Island to deer hunting in accordance with the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 12, section 11402, subsection 4.”

“A (state) representative that does not represent our area proposed LD 1438 which would include opening up deer hunting on MDI. I can’t say enough about how disappointed I personally am that this representative never contacted the town, does not represent our area, did not contact our (state) representative and just went ahead and tried to push it through without even contacting the town,” Select Board Chair Jamie Thurlow said, at a May 2025 Select Board meeting .

That May 5 meeting was attended, via Zoom, by Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Regional (wildlife) Biologist Steve Dunham and Maine State Representative Mike Lance (R-Paris) for the purpose of the Select Board gaining guidance on creating a special deer hunt for Tremont.

On May 7 at an IFW Committee meeting, the committee unanimously voted that the bill ought not to pass (ONTP), which “killed the bill in committee.” This decision was partially based on information that Lance brought back to the committee after meeting with the Tremont Select Board.

Since that decision was made, the Select Board has been refining plans to hold a special deer hunt in Tremont as a way to attempt to reduce the number of deer-involved car crashes, destruction of private property through deer grazing, and instances of Lyme disease in humans.

Some of the finer points that have been honed down during the process involve who can hunt, where they can hunt, what weapons can be used to hunt and what sex deer can be killed.

Those points include:

• All hunting will be archery and shotgun only.
• Hunting can only take placed from a fixed position, ground blind or elevated stand.
• Landowners must provide stand locations.
• Only property owners and Tremont residents may hunt.
• Only anterless deer may be taken. An anterless deer is defined by the state as any deer having antlers less than three inches in length as measured from the skull.
• Hunters will be required to register with the town office to prove residency or land ownership and will be given a permission slip which must be shown when tagging a deer at the mandated tagging station.
• The tagging station location will be either Gott’s Store in Southwest Harbor or Hansen’s Outpost in Tremont, location to be decided.
• The special hunt will take place during the month of November beginning with the 2026 hunting season and will last for a total three years.
• All other applicable state hunting rules and guidelines must be followed including shooting distance from dwellings.

The full special hunt plan as presented to the IFW is below.

Tremont Special Hunt Request Draft 03 16 2026

374KB ∙ PDF file

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While more speakers appeared to be in favor of a hunt at public hearings, there was opposition. During multiple meetings, wildlife photographer and Tremont resident George Sanker and Southwest Harbor resident Charlotte Gill both spoke of their opposition to killing deer and alternative methods of population control.

The banning of the hunting of all deer predators would be a preferred method for deer population control on Mount Desert Island, in his opinion, Sanker said at a February 17 Select Board meeting.

Sanker also mentioned the feeding of deer being an issue at the same meeting. This is because, he said, people are giving large amounts of food that is more easily accessed by deer and of higher value to a deer’s palette, with this feeding activity often being close to roads.

Gill said that one of her bigger issues with the proposed plan is that there is no population study to show an increase in the deer numbers and no non-lethal option in the proposed plan and that it “is entirely about killing deer.”

The plan centers on antlerless deer which makes the hunt about birth rates and she believes that birth rates should be reduced using birth control methods instead. That would prevent turning a hunt into an annual cycle of culling deer, Gill said, also at the February 17 meeting.

At the March 16 meeting, there was little discussion amongst the Select Board and the public attendees.

Select Board member Eric Eaton, who was absent from the February 17 meeting when the deer hunt was last discussed asked, “When you guys were talking about tags and stuff, you guys kicked out the idea of a buck tag, is that correct?”

Chair Jamie Thurlow responded that there was a lot of concern about hunters trying to push their luck and come to Tremont solely to shoot a buck, so they made the decision to take bucks out of the equation.

Thurlow said that in the big picture, it was a small compromise.

Eaton was concerned with an overabundance of mature bucks possibly hurting each other to establish dominance and mate among a smaller population of does.

Heath Higgins and Alex Johnson, both admitted hunters and audience members, expressed concerns similar to Eaton’s with Johnson saying that fewer does may make the mating bucks more dangerous when it comes to things such as blindly trying to run across a roadway.

All three commenters did recognize the fact that after one season, the town could apply to change certain rules and could add bucks if it thought it was necessary or prudent.

In fact, the special hunt plan contains language that the hunt can be ended after any of the three November hunts and the initial hunt rules, other than yearly modifications, will last for three years.

After three years, the town “will hold a town wide vote to open regular hunting. The town can specify at that time the type of season to open.”

Eaton made a motion to “certify and sign the Town of Tremont’s Deer Management Plan dated March 16, 2026, and to request the town manager place it on the May 2026 Annual Town Meeting warrant for vote by secret ballot.”

The motion was seconded by Vice Chair McKenzie Jewett and passed unanimously.

At an April 16 legislative public hearing while testifying in opposition to Rep. Faulkingham’s proposed legislation, State Representative Gary Friedmann said, “I do believe we have a deer problem,” adding that approximately 12 years ago when he was a Bar Harbor town councilor, the town hoped to create a culling program, which was voted down by less than 50 votes in late 2014.

Now Tremont voters will have their say in the hunting plan. The Select Board is planning a final public hearing on April 6 and the issue will be voted on by voters at Tremont’s Annual Town Meeting on May 11.