Panels back hunting on Hampden land

HAMPDEN – The consensus reached at Thursday’s public workshop was overwhelming: Hunting should continue to be allowed on town-owned property, perhaps now more than ever.

Discussed Thursday at a meeting of the town’s public safety and recreation committees, the issue has come to the forefront in light of the coming deer-hunting season and the changing face of land use along U.S. Route 202, an area traditionally open to hunting.

About a dozen residents, including a game warden and a wildlife ecology professor, attended the workshop. Not one of them spoke out against hunting on town land.

“We have to separate out fear from safety,” said Dan Harrison, a wildlife researcher and University of Maine professor. The threat posed by an unmanaged deer population, including Lyme disease and collisions with vehicles on Route 202, is greater than that of a potential stray bullet, he said.

Along with councilors, the group reached a final consensus that hunting on the town’s properties along Route 202 should be allowed, particularly at a time when much of Hampden’s open space is being lost to subdivisions and other development.

One area of growth is the Hampden Business and Commerce Park on Route 202, where lot development has picked up in recent months. Just down the road are 234 wooded acres that the town purchased last year from L.L. Bean Inc.

Hunting traditionally has been allowed on both properties, though the neighboring Ammo Industrial Park recently was closed to hunting.

Hunting is allowed on town-owned property with the exception of Dorothea Dix Park on U.S. Route 1A, which was given to the town in 1984 with the stipulation that hunting be prohibited. A firearms ordinance limits hunting in the 4-mile-square area, though bowhunting is allowed in the zone.

Even the Locust Grove cemetery on Main Road South is feeling the effects of the growing deer population, cemetery sexton Devon Patterson said Thursday. Speaking as a resident and not on behalf of the town, Patterson said problems arose when the town prohibited discharge of firearms in the area around the cemetery.

“There was never any problem for 15 years, but the [deer] population has gotten so high that they’re eating shrubs they never bothered before,” he said.

Town officials shouldn’t worry that hunting will deter potential buyers from purchasing lots in the business park, resident Rich Armstrong said Thursday. Armstrong said he owns a business in a Hermon park, similar to Hampden’s, where hunting is allowed.

“That’s going to have nothing to do with potential business owners buying a piece of property from the town,” he said.

Dan Scott, a resident and game warden, suggested that all of the former L.L. Bean property be maintained as green space, and that councilors poll hunters as well as other users of the property to learn how it’s being used.

Several other attendees agreed, including Mark McCollough, a member of the town’s conservation commission.

“It’s not all hunting; we’re trying to maintain open space for all forms of recreation,” he said.

The committees’ recommendation to allow hunting on town property now will be forwarded to the Town Council for review at its meeting on Monday, Oct. 17.