Having just read the article in Cape Gazette about the State Forest Service's plan to lease the hunting privileges out on two state forest properties, I feel I must write to point out the holes in their argument.
First off, neither parcel is "inaccessible." Long Tract has at least three-quarters of a mile of county road frontage and is accessible from three sides. The Tunnell Tract has a county road bordering one side and Rum Ridge Road runs though the middle of the parcel.
In both tracts you can just pull over, park and walk in... total access... the only limit to the property is how far in does each hunter wish to walk in and with the existing service roads within the tracts, that can be limitless.
Second if the goal here is to actually reduce the deer numbers, then open both tracts for the two antlerless seasons. Science shows that the best way to control the population is to harvest does.
It's simple math, for every one harvested in the fall it will reduce the number by two or three in the spring.
Then there are other factors too. Like at Long Tract there is an adjacent property about the same size; it's owned by Sussex County and closed to hunting. As soon as the season starts the deer just cross over Mt. Joy Road to safety. Take a walk in there around mid- November and you can't walk a hundred feet without spooking deer, but you can hunt the whole day across the street and see nothing.
I feel for the farmers and agree that too many deer are a real problem for them. I also feel that the farmers and sportsmen would be better served if someone, maybe DNREC or the Farm Bureau, could facilitate a database or even a list to put farmers having problems with deer and ethical hunters together. Hunters could register and pay a nominal fee just like at the state parks.
Landowners could then speak to prospective hunters and set the ground rules for access to their properties such as requiring a waiver, shooting a doe before a buck, some venison to help feed the family or even a fee. Then farmers having problems with deer could team up with hunters to reduce the population where the problem really is, on their farms and not in the state forest.
We have a bunch of farmers who need deer numbers reduced on their farms and a bunch of hunters who would love to help them achieve that. They just need access. As far as this lease deal goes, it just smacks of someone trying to make two publicly owned "private" hunting preserves for some well-to-do or well-connected friends.
Pete Bussa
Millsboro