Carrie Jones

1 hour ago

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Restaurant Barn.

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TREMONT—A town-run and state-approved deer hunt is tentatively set to begin in Tremont, November 1, with permits being dispersed soon, Town Manager Jesse Dunbar told members of the League of Town last week.

The state had approved the hunt the week before.

“It was the second time they’ve approved it in the last month,” Dunbar said of the state approval. “They approved it August 11th, I believe. I guess there was a discrepancy. One of their public notices said that that meeting was taking place in Augusta and then at the last minute it changed to Gray so they could tour some facility after the meeting.”

However, a public notice didn’t update.

“So, the Attorney General received some complaints that they had not properly advertised where the meeting was, even though it was on Zoom,” Dunbar explained. “The Attorney General advised re-advertising and holding the meeting again to avoid any challenges to that situation.”

It was approved.

“The Attorney General reviewed it at the request of the Commissioner again to make sure the state was fine legally with the document,” Dunbar said. “The Attorney General didn’t have any issues, so I had a meeting with Inland Fisheries Friday on Zoom to start working out the actual permitting process that the town office will be doing to administer issuing the permits to the hunters, which is tentatively set to begin from October 1 to the 20, and then we’ll issue permits between, at some point before the 31, and the hunt will take place during November.”

They are currently on track, he said.

“I guess there was some…some of the people that attended the meeting last week were concerned the state started referring to it as … That is not a special hunt. It’s a general hunt. And everybody was just under the impression with terminology that it was a special hunt,” Dunbar said. “The state has clarified with me that they’ve approved exactly what the town adopted and approved, but in the state statute, a special hunt is a hunt that takes place where hunting is already allowed. So if Lamoine wanted to do archery only, that would be a special hunt. But where hunting is not allowed on MDI, it’s not a special hunt. They’re opening hunting per the rules Tremont adopted. So, she said just refer to it as the Tremont hunt because it’s not like any other hunt in the state. So we’ll see. Everybody was very positive on the Zoom.”

The head wardens for Hancock County and Washington County thought the plan was well-drafted, Dunbar relayed.

One warden had told Dunbar that he’s worked for the state for 40 years.

“I think he said seen 10 attempts to open hunting on the island that had not gone through, so he was optimistic that it was going to be pulled off,” Dunbar said.

“We will begin accepting hunter applications tomorrow, October 1 through the 20. We will then process and contact hunters to come in and receive their permit/permission slip prior to November,” Dunbar said via email, September 30.

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