Officials optimistic on Havre deer management plan

While weather seems to have impeded hunting efforts, Havre officials remain cautiously optimistic about the recently implemented urban deer management plan in the city, despite criticism by some residents.

The plan, which allows for bow hunting of urban deer in certain areas of the city and potentially trapping on private property at some point, was passed by the Havre City Council last year with overwhelming community support.

The deer population within the city has grown significantly over the past few years and the animals, becoming increasingly comfortable with humans, have caused an increasingly significant amount of property damage and most community members who've voiced opinions on the subject regard them as a serious nuisance.

After the volume of calls to do something about the animals increased the council decided to create a population management plan to mitigate these issues in the long term, though proponents stressed that results would likely take a few years to manifest and the plan would never eliminate the population in its entirety.

The plan is being overseen by the Havre Police Department, which makes sure that hunters are getting proper permits, hunting in the right places and generally being safe, as well as handling requests by landowners to add their properties to the list of eligible hunting areas.

Havre Police Chief Gabe Matosich said the plan only allows for bow hunting in wide-open areas far removed from residential areas and for that reason they've had to tell some land owners no, because opening their properties up to hunting would be dangerous.

Matosich said they recently got a few more requests from landowners who were eligible and they are keeping their map of hunting areas, found on the city's website, up-to-date.

He also said they aren't doing any trapping just yet, because they want to see how well the bow hunting goes so they can tailor their trapping efforts to complement it more effectively.

"We wanted to see how the archery hunting goes first," he said.

Since Dec. 15, when hunting was opened, 12 hunters have signed up and two deer have been harvested, he said, though he suspects the harsh weather probably kept some hunters away, likely making these first few weeks a bad indicator for future hunting activity.

He said so far hunters have been following the rules, reporting their harvests as required, staying within the permitted areas and going through all the necessary steps to get permitted.

Matosich said there was some confusion early on about some of the finer points of what was and wasn't permitted but it was cleared up pretty quickly so it wasn't much of an impediment.

He said the department did have a little scare last week with a report of a fawn seen with an arrow through its leg, but when officers found the animal it turned out to be a piece of fencing, not an arrow.

He said it's not impossible for a hunter to make a bad shot and for something like that to happen, but they'd like to avoid that kind of thing as much as possible and he's glad it ended up being a false alarm.

Overall, Matosich said, the plan has gotten a lot of interest from landowners, potential hunters and residents in general, all of it positive in his experience, but the plan hasn't been entirely without criticism.

While the public meetings the city set up when discussing the plan were extremely well-attended and support for the plan was overwhelming, the last meeting held did get a few opponents concerned about its efficacy and whether it was humane.

Earlier this week Havre resident Renelle Braaten called the plan "stupid" and said she wishes the council had done more research.

Braaten said she likes the deer, that they don't affect her and she likes that they slow down traffic.

She said she spoke to someone at the Humane Society who told her that people should haze the deer instead of killing them.

"That's the problem with the world today, they just want to kill everything," she said. "It's their answer to everything."

Others have approached the Havre Daily News with concerns after the hunting started, but wanted to wait before making any public comment.

The suggestion to haze the deer was brought up at one of the meetings about the plan last year, but many residents said their attempts to do just that have been increasingly ineffective as the deer become more accustomed to humans, partially because some in town seem to still be feeding them.

Matosich said he's hopeful for the plan's success, but it is very early on and he suspects there are plenty more hunters that will become more interested once the worst of the cold and snow disappears.

If the plan ends up not working or there are problems, he said, then the city will need go back to the drawing board because the animals are undeniably a problem that the community at large wants to solve.

He said beyond the issue of the animals eating people's gardens and damaging their yards, they are also a traffic hazard that is costing people money and hurting the animals besides, with last year seeing 14 collisions with the animals.

Matosich said the issue of the deer getting into human food, or being deliberately fed by humans persists as well, leading many of the animals to very unpleasant ends.

He said the deer's digestive systems are not built for human food and while it may seem tempting to feed the animals, especially in the cold, people are killing them by feeding them.

In 2022, he said, the department responded to 30 calls reporting dead deer, sometimes with as many as four dead deer found on a single call and the majority of them show evidence of having died by ingesting human food.

City officials have said in the past that it may be tempting to those who like the deer to feed them, especially when its cold out, but deer are built to handle those conditions and can find their own food.

Feeding deer is against city ordinance and state law, but Matosich said the department prefers to educate people on the effects they have on the animals instead of being heavy-handed, as there are people who don't know the laws and don't know the negative impacts of feeding the deer.

He said people need to not leave food out and make sure things like bird feeders are high up off the ground so the deer don't accidentally eat anything bad for them either.

Matosich said if people want the deer that remain in Havre to be healthy, they need to not feed them, which will help the the animals and his department, as the latter will need to spend less time responding to these calls and removing the dead deer.

He also talked about human-deer conflict in general as male deer especially can get aggressive during the rutting season.

He said there haven't been any reports of human injuries yet thankfully, but they do get a lot of calls about deer harassing dogs and vice-versa, and they would rather not be spending so much time on either.

Matosich said his department will continue to monitor the program so that potential adjustments can be discussed as time goes on.