ABQ / Santa Fe News | New West Network

WHY NOT?

Bowhunting Helena

By Bill Schneider, 2-13-08

All across the nation, bowhunters help cities control urban deer herds, but whenever the subject comes up, it's followed by a lot of questions on safety, costs, legalities and logistics. To answer some of these questions, I browsed the web for a few hours and then called three cities that effectively, inexpensively and safely keep deer populations in check with bowhunting.

Doubters beware. I couldn't come up with a single reason why bowhunters couldn't safely and inexpensively solve the "deer problem" in Helena, Montana, nor why bow hunts wouldn't work in other cities in the New West.

	These three cities effectively, inexpensively and safely keep deer populations in check with bowhunting.

As I write this, Helena has eliminated the bowhunting option, but the Montana FWP Commission could step in, represent its hunting constituency, and make the city change course, which is the subject of tomorrow's Wild Bill column, Let Bowhunters Solve "Deer Problem." Instead, Helena plans to take police officers away from crime-fighting to bait deer into clover traps and after releasing the Bambis "dispatch" 50 adult does and bucks with bolt guns like those used in slaughterhouses. After deer are field dressed and skinned, they'll be turned over to a local meat processor and then distributed to the needy through Helena Food Share.

All this "police work," plus already-completed planning and surveying and city and state staff time has run the cost of killing these 50 deer up to around $2,000 per animal, which was the subject of a January Wild Bill column, Our Most Expensive Deer. Some of this money was hunting license dollars from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) and the rest came out of city general funds.

The first call I made was to the Bismarck police department where I discovered we Montanans could learn a few things from our neighbors in North Dakota. In Bismarck, the police department manages an urban bow hunt and has been doing it without controversy for 21 years, but not with police officers doing the gunning and gutting. Instead, Bismarck sells permits to resident and nonresident bowhunters and keeps the deer population in check. And with no safety problems, even though the city doesn't require a proficiency test and hunters can shoot from ground-line stands instead of elevated positions, which is usually a requirement in urban bow hunts.

Steve Schneider (no relation, but with this name, likely of good genetic stock), speaking for the Bismarck Police Department, told NewWest.Net the bow hunt has been very successful with few complaints.

Each year Bismarck sets a quota of between 50-100 hunters who can buy up to four permits each, Schneider explained. The hunters can take a buck or doe with the first one, but additional permits, which are $20 each, are antlerless only. So far, bowhunters have taken almost 900 deer out of Bismarck.

He also said the bow hunt is a "revenue neutral" program for the city.

"We tend to get a lot of younger bowhunters in father-son and father-daughter situations where they don't have to travel so far learn the sport of bowhunting," he added.

Having been to Bismarck a few times and in talking to Schneider, I'd say this city's situation is roughly similar to Helena's in terms of size, scope, environs, and public sentiment.

North Dakota, like Montana, has a state law prohibiting hunting within city limits, but Bismarck gets around this barrier by selling "trespass permits," which serve the purpose of "city deer tags."

In Duluth, Minnesota, a nonprofit organization called the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance (ABA), manages a phenomenally successful urban deer hunt. Phillip Lockett, ABA President, told NewWest.Net the Duluth hunt was launched three years ago and modeled after a similar successful program in the Twin Cities.

In 2007, 310 hunters harvested 567 deer, 476 of them antlerless. "The first deer you harvest must be antlerless," Lockett explained, "and you can only shoot one antlered deer out of the five-deer limit."

In 2006, the results were even better; 195 hunters harvested 564 deer, or 2.9 deer per hunter.

For all the stats on the Duluth Bow Hunt courtesy of Bork, the "Data Dude," click here to view a nifty PowerPoint presentation posted on ABA's website. The conclusion of the presentation is "hunters have been very successful at fulfilling our promise to the city and to the residents."

(For the non-hunters among us, the word "antlerless" is used instead of "females" or "does" because some antlerless deer are buck fawns.)

I asked Lockett if his group considered this a hunt or a public service? "We sold it to the city more as a public service," he answered, "but it is a fantastic hunting opportunity for hunters. We have some very large bucks around here. In some areas around town, it's no different than hunting out in the deep woods."

Duluth is different than Helena, Bismarck or the Twin Cities because the urban area has more large tracts of huntable land, public and private. ABA secures permission to hunt from the private landowners, large and small, public and private. Lockett also said they hunt some very small tracts of land "as little as 100 x 200 feet square," but these usually abut to larger tracts. "In any case, we try to stay out of sight as much as possible."

Anybody who knows anything about bowhunting knows why that's possible.

And the competence level is very high in Duluth. Hunters must pay $5 for a proficiency test at a local archery shop in addition to a longer course mandated by the state wildlife agency.

"We've had no safety issues at all," Lockett boasts. In addition to requirements for a high level of proficiency, Duluth bowhunters must shoot from elevated stands, which makes chances of defection or stray shot much less likely.

And the cost to Duluth taxpayers and Minnesota hunting license buyers? "We sold it to the city as a no-cost program," he said, "and we run the program entirely with the money we get from the $20 permit and some other money we raise."

Duluth patterned its program on one of the most established organizations, the Metro Bowhunters Resource Base (MBRB) in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Operating since 1995, MBRB has facilitated the removal of 2,000 deer, 80 percent antlerless, from city and county parks and private land. And the group enjoys widespread support, except from animal rights groups who oppose any killing of animals.

"For 12 years and over 50,000 hours of hunting, the only safety issues have been hunters falling out of tree stands," boasts Bob Whiting, MRRB president, and he refers to these as "self-inflicted injuries."

"We're here to remove deer and most of those deer are antlerless," Whiting explains. "If all the hunter only wants a big buck, we want him to go somewhere else. Every year we get some monstrous bucks, but that's not what we're about."

The high percentage of females taken in the MBRB harvest isn't a requirement or quota, but landowners (private and public) set the rules, Whiting noted, and they often want only antlerless or require hunters to "earn a buck" by shooting a doe first.

Whiting's group requires hunters to have an International Archery Certificate and take a proficiency test. (Montana and most states require aspiring bowhunters take a bowhunter education course, and if they pass, they get this certificate.) In MBRB-managed areas, hunters must shoot from elevated stands and limit shots to 20 yards or less to minimize wounding.

"Whenever you have bowhunting," Whiting admits, "you have a wounding issue." But he points out that many more deer (and people) are wounded in vehicle-deer collisions, the frequency of which can be reduced by lowering urban deer herds. MBRB stresses shot placement in its training and testing, and wounding rates run about half of the national average.

On financing, Whiting said his group charges a $12 application fee and a $10 hunt fee, and "this is our only source of income. The cost to the city is zero."

There you go. Other cities do it, so cities in the New West can do it, too.

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