More than 200,000 hunters take part in four-week season

PORTLAND – Maine’s 2005 deer season, hailed as one of the safest ever, ended at 4:28 p.m. Saturday, a half-hour after sunset.

According to early estimates, more than 200,000 hunters participated in the four-week firearms season and officials predicted at the outset that the deer harvest would number about 32,400. A preliminary estimate of the kill will be announced in a week to 10 days.

The season began amid rainy and warm conditions, but hunters – particularly those in northern sections – were helped by the snow that arrived in the past several days, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

As the season wound down to its final hours, Latti said there were no fatalities and only one firearm-related injury reported thus far. “It’s been one of our safest seasons ever,” he said.

Several hunters who ran into problems Friday were rescued and had to be treated at local hospitals for hypothermia.

Three hunters en route to an island in the Androscoggin River to hunt deer got help after their flat-bottomed boat sank in Greene, leaving them stranded, wet and cold.

The men managed to get into a canoe being pulled by the boat, then paddled to the riverbank and used a cell phone to call Turner Rescue.

In another rescue Friday, a hunter trapped chest-deep in a freezing beaver bog in Carmel was assisted by emergency personnel who found him so numb that he was unable to move.

Hunters who failed to get a deer during the regular firearms season can take part in the muzzloader season, which begins Monday.

A record 18,545 hunters bought muzzleloader permits last year, an increase of 20 percent from 2002.