A small but vocal group of local residents have taken their distaste of the Town’s new hunting cooperative to the internet, and in one case, right to the verge of a citable offense, insisting that the program is unsafe, inhumane, invasive, and not thoroughly thought out.

The hunting cooperative — part of an agreement with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) brokered to hopefully reduce the booming deer population in Bristol (and the associated health issues that come with it) — began on Sept. 15 and will run through Jan. 31 at four Town-owned properties.

According to incident logs provided by DEM’s law enforcement division, the first 15 days of the program in Bristol have either been a run-of-the-mill rollout, or a total disaster; depending, of course, on who you ask.

Lots of reports, but only two warnings given

Officially, according to Michael Schipritt, Deputy Chief of DEM’s Division of Law Enforcement, the first 15 days resulted in a lot of incident reports but only ultimately resulted in two written warnings issued to hunters who were found to be hunting without a valid bow hunting proficiency card — an additional layer of certification on top of the traditional hunting license and safety training that the Town Council asked to be included within the cooperative agreement. A third hunter was given a verbal warning for the same infraction on Sept. 30.

Other logs of note in the call log included a grisly incident on the very first day of the season (Sept. 15), where two semi-butchered deer carcasses (one with its head missing) were found near the Peter Road parking area for the Skaters Pond hunting ground at 1:31 p.m. But when asked about that, Schipritt said that while the improper disposal of the deer would be a violation, it could not ultimately be determined as poaching. The perpetrator was not found.

“The deer could have been hunted elsewhere and dropped there,” he said. “It’s unfortunately a common thing during hunting season throughout the year and the state.”

One noteworthy incident actually involved one of the outspoken residents against the hunting program, Elmwood Drive resident Bill Marshall.

On Sept. 21, Marshall was allegedly walking through the nearby 100 Acre Woods conservancy area, which became one of the hunting grounds, with a megaphone, either “to shout anti-hunting propaganda” (according to the incident report), or to announce his presence in fear for his safety (according to another resident who spoke about the incident). 

Bristol police and DEM law enforcement officers eventually descended on the scene, and issued him a warning that the act could be charged as hunter harassment, which could be enforced as a district court violation.

Marshall did not return a phone call to provide his side of the incident by press time.

The call log also showed that DEM enforcement officers conducted compliance checks at each of the hunting grounds multiple times over those 15 days, which often found hunters in compliance with regulations. One instance where it was suspected a hunter had ventured onto private property without permission revealed ultimately that he did have permission to do so.

The residents’ take

“Right now, it’s bad, and it’s only been opened for a short time,” said Joe Carosi, a former hunter, Vietnam Veteran of the U.S. Army, and long-time resident of Berry Lane (which abuts the Hopeworth hunting area).

Carosi said that, although the Town claims it sent out an abutters notices to all residents near the 200-foot buffer zone for hunting, he didn’t receive that correspondence. “They said they did, but I never got a notice,” he said.

Carosi said that the system could have been designed in a better way, such as utilizing a lottery system only open to hunters from the East Bay region. He likewise said that the area is too small, and will result in deer being pushed out into the surrounding heavily trafficked roads.

“You’re getting people who aren’t from this area and aren’t familiar with this territory or the land,” he said. “These hunters don’t know what they’re doing, and they’re doing it illegally.”

He said that DEM does not have the personnel to be able to effectively keep tabs on hunting activity in the area.

“The DEM doesn’t even have check-in stations. When I hunted, you had to take the deer there, check the tags, and they weigh the deer,” he said. “I see very little presence of the DEM around…Don’t go tell people ‘We’ll do this for you and that for you.’ That’s wrong. Tell the truth of what you can do and can’t do.”

He also referenced one incident in the report, which indicated a hunter shot a deer at 8:50 p.m. on Sept. 22 and that he would be back “at first light” to track it.

“If you take a deer down, you have to make sure that deer is harvested. You don’t go back 12-13 hours later and come back for it,” he said. “We have a coyote problem here…There’s kids that go into the woods.”

Safety is also a primary concern for Alison Arruda, a Hopeworth Avenue resident. Arruda started a Facebook group against the hunting program and started a petition, which has garnered over 120 signatures as of the time of an interview with her last week.

“I sat through hours of Town Council meetings where they’re talking about keeping kids safe in schools, but we’re not keeping them safe in their neighborhoods,” she said. “We’re bringing strangers into the neighborhoods, more traffic, and kids might not see the signs because some of them are posted up so high…I am outraged that this wasn’t put to a vote for the citizens of Bristol, and I think there should be a town meeting about this.”

Arruda, like Carosi, said she wasn’t properly notified of the hunting program beginning near her home. She criticized the Town Council for not looking into more humane ways to deal with the deer population.

“I think there’s better ways of doing it,” she said, mentioning the use of a vaccine called PZP, which is administered through a dart gun to female deer to prevent fertility. “I think it wasn’t well thought out.”

Officials respond

When asked if DEM has seen anything in the first 15 days of the hunting program in Bristol that has caused them pause or concern, DEM spokesman Michael Healey said that so far, things had rolled out much the same as in other areas that began hunting cooperatives.

“We don’t see any reason to make any changes to the co-op agreement at this time,” he said. “We hope this program is successful in decreasing deer populations to a healthier level and a safer level.”

Deputy Chief Schipritt said that a couple of hunters being found without the additional bow hunting proficiency card was an expected result, as it is a level of certification above and beyond what hunters normally must acquire.

“Personally I have been archery hunting my whole life and never been in an area where a proficiency card was required,” he said.

Schipritt agreed that additional patrols or enforcement was not necessary at this time.

“From a law enforcement perspective, I haven’t seen anything concerning at all,” he said.

Dylan Ferreira, the Principal Wildlife Biologist for DEM who advocated for the creation of the program through multiple meetings at the Bristol Town Council, agreed that the newness of the program would generate a high level of interest and criticism in the first season.

“Any time you have hunting occurring in a new area, whether rural or urban or otherwise, some certain number of people are going to be upset,” Ferreira said. “Ninety-nine percent of our hunters are doing the right thing. I’d say this is pretty common in the beginning stages.”

Given a chance to respond to critics saying the Town Council didn’t perform enough due diligence on the program, Town Council Chairman Nathan Calouro said on Tuesday that the program went through three public meetings before being enacted (all of which were duly advertised), and that preventing tick-born illnesses and collisions between vehicles and deer remain worthy reasons to enact the program.

“I understand people are concerned, but so is the Council. I live here and my colleagues live here,” he said. “Hunting has happened in Bristol for years prior to this, it’s just never been front and center and has never been on Town land. I think that’s the distinctive difference here.”

Calouro said he is in constant communication with Bristol police about the program, and that the council will continue to monitor the program going forward.

“I haven’t had direct conversations with my colleagues about this but I know we will be reviewing this at the end of the season,” he said. “[Residents] should know confidently the police aren’t going anywhere, we are monitoring it, the police are monitoring it, we did it for the reasons stated and we should see a difference in those numbers with less Lyme disease and all the other things that go with it.”