Please don't feed the deer - or face a summons?

If people REALLY cared about the deer, they would not feed them and would demand that our state government mandate the protection of deer yards from development and logging. Feeding deer only increases the potential for the spread of diseases like CWD. In Wisconsin, well-meaning individuals set out mineral blocks for deer in an attempt to grow bucks with large antlers. That area of Wisconsin became the epicenter for a CWD outbreak. As a result, the State of Wisconsin has ordered the killing of thousands of deer and has spent millions of dollars in an attempt to stop the spread of CWD. I recently saw a commercial on a Maine television station advertising the sale of mineral blocks for deer. The only way to decrease the feeding of deer is to make it illegal and then to enforce the law. The winter logging along I-95 is a disgrace. Heads should roll.

While many enjoy the sight of deer browsing in their yards, they fail to understand that "kindness" to the deer really sets them up to be easy prey for hunters. I live in a no-hunting area, and the herd of deer have become pests who roam the streets without fear of humans and have multiplied beyond the capacity of the natural environment to sustain them. Therefore, those feeding them for the people's own pleasure have assumed the responsibility of providing for the deer forever. And, the deer have also learned to browse, not on their natural food, but on my vegetables, roses, hyacinths and hosta.

I do not think the state should pass any law that is essentially unenforcible. Feeding deer in the harsh months of winter, with proper grains designed for wildlife feeding, is something that some Maine people will always continue to do around their homes to help the deer get through the winter, regardless of what the state's biologists may recommend. Coping with record snowfalls, ice, car-deer collisions (in which the deer always loses), coyotes, and dogs, the deer already has a lot of controls on its population. Why allow starvation to add to the list?
chb

Feeding deer or other wildlife should be illegal. It is clear, as the biologists report, that deer are meant to eat food that is available in the wild. I hope that the legislature does the right thing and bans this practice. I realize that the feeding is being done by well-meaning people but they should understand that they are doing more harm to the deer herd than that done by the natural process of survival of the fittest.

where the right of way trimming is occuring. I'm not sure why the State decided to perform the work in the Winter when they know, or should have known, that the tops and refuse from the cut would attract starving deer to the roadside and into the median strip like flies to honey. In a trip to Millinocket last week I counted 4 deer dead from vehicle strikes. I counted scores and scores of live deer right along side the road and in the median strip. Not only is this a sad waste of a valuable wildlife source but it's putting motorists at much higher risk. The trenching and ruts left by the heavy equipment being used to harvest the wood is a huge eyesore. What else can we expect from a State that spent an entire year's transportation budget to replace the Verona Island bridge when the 8 million in repairs to the old bridge would have sufficed for a couple of decades to come.