Thank you for Steve Myrick’s article on the shotgun season for deer. Steve captured perfectly what our Island is doing and what we are not doing. We, with the able assistance of the state, are managing our deer herd to provide maximum sustainable harvest. Since the end of World War II when there were no deer on Martha’s Vineyard we have built a well-fed solid deer herd that provides good hunting (and good eating) for several hundred Islanders.

What we are not doing is listening to the experts who tell us over and over again that if we want to reduce the incidence of tick-related diseases we need to reduce the number of deer. We don’t need experts to tell us how, we just need the will to get the job done. Tweaking the existing system will not work, eliminating it might. If we remove the rules and allow deer to be harvested whenever someone has the opportunity the deer population will certainly go down.

Chris Murphy

Chilmark