Thanks to a mild winter, Maine’s white-tailed deer population is in good shape.

Thursday, state deer biologist Gerry Lavigne recommended increasing by 3,550 the number of any-deer permits that will be available for the 2004 hunting season.

The state estimated the deer population at about 230,000 after last fall’s kill of just over 30,000 deer, according to department data.

State biologists are working to increase the herd statewide to about 300,000 deer, so DIF&W will issue a limited number of “any deer” permits to give does, and their potential future fawns, some protection from hunters.

Statewide, 76,150 hunters will be given the option of shooting a female deer next fall if the proposal is given final approval at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Council’s May meeting.

The permits are allocated by region, with a few locations in deer-dense southern and central Maine receiving more than 10,000 permits each.

In northern and eastern Maine however, local deer herds are struggling because the heavy logging that followed the spruce budworm epidemic of the 1980s eliminated many of the traditional wintering areas, groves of mature trees where deer gather for shelter once snow starts falling.

Without sufficient winter habitat, deer have to struggle through deep snow, wasting valuable calories and becoming easier targets for predators such as coyote, bear, bobcat and lynx.

In an attempt to protect these northern deer, state wildlife management officials did not grant any permits – and won’t again this fall – in districts covering far eastern Aroostook County and much of Washington County.

“We’re just trying to hold on to the deer that we’ve got,” Lavigne said.

However, six districts elsewhere in the state that were left out of the any-deer hunt last fall, would receive between 25 and 100 permits under the 2004 plan.

Last fall’s hunt was particularly conservative in response to the harsh winter spanning 2002 and 2003, Lavigne said. However, last fall’s small hunt – shrunk even more by warm, wet weather through most of November – followed by a mild winter justified liberalizing the hunt somewhat for this fall, he said.

A few advisers raised concerns that some hunting districts in northern and eastern Maine still may be too liberal, but Lavigne argued for his proposal.

“From a biological standpoint, we can support it, and from a social standpoint, it’s desirable,” he said.

Public comments on the proposal will be accepted until May 21, and should be sent to Andrea Erskine, Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, 41 State House Station, Augusta 04333-0041 or andrea.erskine@state.me.us.