BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 14, 2021
White-tailed deer in Maine will have a greater chance of surviving severe winter conditions in the future thanks to recent measures taken by the Legislature. The state budget has earmarked $40 million from the Land for Maine’s future program, which for the next four years will help support efforts to protect deer wintering areas. And recent legislation will empower the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to purchase and manage that habitat in northern, western and eastern Maine. A bill passed earlier this month and signed into law was developed by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and other groups. It authorizes the State for the first time to purchase lands specifically as deer wintering areas. Deer wintering areas have been decimated over the last half-century by a spruce budworm outbreak and industrial logging.