For children across the nation, Oct. 31 means donning costumes and hitting the streets to celebrate Halloween. But for thousands of residents here in Maine, that date means something important: the opening day of firearm season for hunting deer, the most sought after game species in the state.
Under a canopy of bright foliage, people of all ages and agendas will be sharing Maine’s great outdoors, and many of them will be carrying guns. For others, though, there’s still plenty of hiking, biking and birdwatching to be done — sometimes in the same woods where hunters roam. This begs the question: Is it really safe out there?
According to Maine hunting and outdoor recreation experts, the answer is yes. Based on recent statistics, the Maine woods is safer than ever before for hunters and nonhunters alike.
“Your chances of going out and getting injured during hunting season are much less than if you were to go skiing,” Michael Sawyer, recreational vehicle and safety coordinator for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said. “Hunting is one of the safest sports there is.”
In 2013, more than 218,000 hunting licenses were issued in the state of Maine, more than 24,000 deer were killed and tagged and just four hunting incidents were reported, according to the DIF&W.
In these reports, an “incident” is defined as an event in which a person was injured with a firearm, bow or crossbow and needed professional medical attention. Of the four incidents in 2014, three of them were self-inflicted wounds and one was the shooting of a fellow hunter who reportedly was in the shooter’s line of fire.
“By in large, hunters are out there complying with safety laws and do a good job respecting other people,” Maine Game Warden Jim Fahey said. “You tend to hear about the instances when they don’t, when one hunter makes a poor decision, and then all hunters get painted by the same brush.”
Today, Maine hunters have a whole book full of rules and regulations to adhere to. It’s called the Maine Hunting and Trapping Laws and Rules guidebook, and it’s updated annually with new laws and hunting season dates.
But hunting wasn’t always such a safe sport in Maine.
Making the woods safer
Today Maine only sees a handful of hunting accidents each year, but back in the 1950s and ’60s hunting injuries and fatalities were a lot more common. Statistics collected by the DIF&W mark 1952 as a particularly bad year, with an all time high of 70 hunting-related shootings, 19 of which were fatalities.
Since then, the number of these incidents has decreased, especially over the past few decades. This trend coincides with the enactment of several state hunting and trapping regulations meant to bolster safety and sportsmanship in the Maine woods.
“There are a number of safety laws we enforce,” Fahey said. “One is the mandatory hunter orange requirement.”
The “hunter orange law” requires all hunters using firearms or crossbows during the open firearm season on deer to wear two articles of hunter orange clothing: one being a hat, the other covering a major portion of the torso. A version of this law was first enacted in 1973 in Maine and has been expanded and refined several times since.
Also known as “blaze orange,” hunter orange is startlingly bright and seems to glow. If you visit the hunting section in any sports store, you’ll find it. Hunter orange hats, vests and jackets — it’s hard to miss.
Also this time of year, many pet stores tend to carry hunter orange items, including dog collars and leashes, bandanas and jackets for dogs and horses.
The color isn’t just for hunters. Jacques suggests nonhunters wear hunter orange and other bright colors, such as neon pink and yellow, while in the woods.
“If you’re going to go in the woods, just to be safe, put on a piece of blaze orange,” Jacques said. “It’s so hunters can see you. Just like you wouldn’t go jogging at night in dark clothes on the wrong side of the road.”
Passing on the tradition
In 1983, it became mandatory for Maine hunters to take a state-issued hunter safety course.
“When I was growing up, I hunted with my grandfather and dad and uncles,” Jacques, who was in the Legislature in 1983 and sponsored the hunter safety bill, said. “They taught us right from wrong. But not everyone gets that. I figured if we had a hunter safety course, people would at least get the basics.”
Last year, IF&W held 275 hunter safety courses throughout the state of Maine, training 6,754 students of all ages.
The course is 12 hours long — usually lasting a weekend — and includes instruction on proper weapon handling, outdoor survival, map and compass, hunter responsibility and more.
“Ethics and responsibility, that’s an area we’ve strengthened a lot because we feel that’s so important,” Sawyer, who oversees the course instructors, said. “Being responsible for their actions. And the landowner relations part is huge. There are various elements overtime that we keep refining.”
In recent years, the IF&W has seen an increasing number of students, with a peak in 2013 of 7,171 total students. Resident hunting license sales in Maine have increased each year since 2005, and nonresident license sales also have increased each of the past three years.
‘Enough’s enough’
A 1988 tragedy involving a hunter spurred the next big change in Maine regulations that has helped make the woods safer for passive recreation.
In late October that year, a young woman named Karen Wood was shot and killed in her backyard in Hermon. Game wardens arrested Bangor resident Donald Rogerson, who had been hunting deer in the nearby woods. The tragedy soon became national news.
Rogerson later said he saw a deer, fired at it, then fired again at what looked like a deer’s tail. News outlets made a connection between his story and the fact that Karen Woods was wearing white-palmed mittens that day, which might be mistaken for deer tails, according to a previous BDN story.
“People were angry,” Jacques said. “When hunters were shooting other hunters accidentally, people would say, ‘Hey, they’re stupid. That’s alright.’ But when a hunter shot a lady who wasn’t hunting, was in the backyard hanging clothes, and two little girls would live the rest of their life without their mother, people said, ‘Enough is enough.’”
Two years later, the case made it to trial and the jury found Rogerson not guilty of manslaughter.
Jacques, a legislator from Waterville at the time, teamed up with other legislators to address this problem. Together, they drafted a new law that described a standard of conduct that a prudent hunter must abide by, including proper target identification that includes seeing the head and torso of the animal and knowing what lies beyond the target.
“Once you pull that trigger, you can’t stop that bullet, you can’t call it back,” said Jacques, who has led hunter safety courses in Maine. “So before you pull the trigger, make darn sure you look once, twice, three times. That was the most important thing we tried to pound into people’s heads [during hunter safety courses]. … You as a hunter have a responsibility, and it’s an awesome responsibility.”
The law was adopted in 1991, and hunting-related shootings continued to decline.
Sharing the great outdoors
Fall in Maine, with its bright foliage, crisp air and luxurious lack of bugs, is the ideal time to get outdoors, whether you’re a hunter or a hiker or simply want to pick a pumpkin. On many of the state’s publicly accessible lands, a wide variety of outdoor activities are permitted, including hunting.
“Multiuse is multiuse,” Jacques said. “We have to share the woods, and if you do things right and practice caution, it’s fine.”
A good practice for nonhunters in multiuse areas is to stick to designated recreation trails, which hunters avoid.
“A hunter doesn’t want to be ready to release an arrow at game and have someone come through on a 10-speed bike,” Fahey said.
Looking back over the years, the incidences where hunters mistook a person for game are few and far between, Sawyer said.
“I’m going to tell you frankly: I’ve never seen a human being that looks like a deer,” Jacques said. “I don’t care if you’re walking your dog dressed in brown and white. You don’t look like a deer.”
People who would prefer not to share the woods with hunters altogether can always choose to visit land trust properties, parks and outdoor locales where hunting is prohibited — of which there are many.
And then there’s always Sunday. Sunday hunting was banned in Maine in 1883, and the rule remains to this day.
“If you spend time in the woods, whether you kill something or not isn’t the important part,” Jacques said. “It’s about learning ethics, being respectful to wildlife and people’s property. All of those things make you a better person as you grow up and help you contribute positively to society.”
The 2015-16 Maine Hunting and Trapping Laws and Rules guide is located online at maine.gov/ifw/hunting_trapping/laws/ and can be ordered in print by calling 287-8000 or filling out the form at maine.gov/ifw/aboutus/auto_forms/contact_us.htm.