Could Expanded Deer Hunting Solve Nantucket's Food Insecurity Crisis?

Mike Leavitt was sitting around a dinner table with a group of his friends when the conversation turned to a topic that has vexed many Nantucketers: it’s hard to drive anywhere at night on the island without almost hitting a deer. Why, Leavitt and his friends wondered, hasn’t anyone done anything about the overabundance of deer on Nantucket?

They cause massive damage to local ecosystems, are notorious disease vectors, routinely prove a nuisance to local landscapers and gardeners, and are a danger to drivers. Unchecked, Nantucket’s deer could lay waste to the island’s forests, speed up erosion, and eventually begin to starve themselves to death, according to Leavitt.

And yet, the herd is only growing. The latest estimate from the state suggests there are 10,000 deer on Nantucket, and if nothing changes, that’s the floor.

“If we do nothing, the herd that's 8 [thousand] - 12,000 now, in a few years, will be 12-15 [thousand]. At some point, they're going to run out of things to eat,” Leavitt said.

For reference, the state’s guidelines suggest that a healthy population of deer on Nantucket would be approximately one-tenth of the current population, at around 900 deer. No one, not even Leavitt, thinks Nantucket will ever have only 900 deer.

The state is doing what it can, expanding hunting seasons, offering unlimited hunting permits, and even raising the possibility of programs that would allow the controlled killing of deer outside of deer season.

“Within the confines of what we can do from a regulatory standpoint, we've been expanding things in just about every direction that we can,” said Martin Feehan, a wildlife health specialist working for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

But it’s not enough. Last year, hunters on Nantucket took 863 deer, just below the record 879 deer harvested in 2023, and it barely made a dent in the island’s enormous herd, which remains the densest in the state.

“It's sad to see an animal die, but certainly, they are a great resource, they're able to feed people, and also, right now, the density they are in, they're having an immense amount of impact on those ecosystems,” Feehan said.

So, Leavitt decided to solve the problem.

Enter the ACK Deer Management Project, a small, year-old collection of friends with aspirations to address one of the island’s most intractable and serious issues — and while they’re at it, they might just solve the deer problem, too.

Because the other problem Leavitt is trying to tackle is food insecurity. Existing estimates suggest that around one in five island residents struggles to afford food, a crisis that may be about to get much worse if the food pantry isn’t able to find a new home before its lease expires in April.

“The food insecurity issue has gotten to be so large,” Leavitt said. “The perfect match is venison.”

Leavitt believes that an expanded deer hunt could provide 75,000 meals for island residents each year. If the existing estimates are correct, that would be enough to feed every food-insecure Nantucket resident dinner for over three weeks.

“It's an amazing number, and it will make a huge dent in food insecurity,” Leavitt said. “We're really hoping that the community, and the hunters, and the off-island hunters will really step up to help local ecology, but also help our fellow Nantucketers.”

Seventy-five thousand meals, Leavitt said, would require a take of around 2,000 deer. That’s the goal the ACK Deer Management Project has for the 2025 hunting season, though they acknowledge it’s a lofty one given the previous record stands at a mere 879.

To reach that goal, they’re pursuing a wide range of initiatives and partnering with local non-profits, including the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and Nourish Nantucket.

The organization’s plans are extensive. They aim to develop a program that helps off-island hunters appreciate the unique characteristics of the island. They want to provide plastic bags hunters can use for deer guts, as Nantucket doesn’t have natural scavengers, and piles of rotting intestines have sometimes created tension between off-island hunters and locals. They want to pursue an initiative where hunters can keep the backstraps of the deer, the most desirable cut of meat, and donate the rest, allowing them to fill their own freezers with choice cuts and take more deer to help feed islanders in need.

But, perhaps most importantly, they need a facility with the necessary infrastructure to process and store hundreds or even thousands of deer carcasses. That means a commercial kitchen and a walk-in freezer.

“The primary limitation is really having a site, a facility available for it,” Feehan said. “You really need to have a permitted facility on the island that can operate, at least during the hunting season.”

Currently, the ACK Deer Management Project doesn’t have a dedicated space, but it’s their top priority for the upcoming season. While land is always at a premium on Nantucket, the facility may not be as expensive or difficult to operate as it would seem.

“It's actually not that major of a project,” Leavitt said. “We were surprised by the simplicity and the low cost of getting going.”

Some venison harvested on Nantucket has already gone to those in need, but the operation has historically been small and confined. The ACK Deer Management project wants to change that.

Leavitt does have one other suggestion: deer damage permits.

Deer damage permits allow certain landowners to let sub-permittees kill deer on their property to address agricultural damage outside the regulated hunting season when the damage is significant enough and other options aren’t working. Feehan said that in this case, agricultural damage is defined broadly, and the ecological harm Nantucket’s deer cause to conservation land could qualify.

“We set the parameters for that,” Feehan said of the state. “It's not considered hunting. It’s strictly for deer removal.”

The Land Bank is considering pursuing deer damage permits for its properties. At a recent meeting, the majority of the Land Bank Commission appeared to be leaning in favor of the permits, but they are waiting until another review in September before taking any action. Some commissioners expressed hesitancy about bringing in special hunters outside of the usual hunting season and the potential disruption to the island’s existing hunting community. Even if they decide to pursue deer damage permits, they’ll need state approval first.

While the permits can be controversial, as they allow deer to be killed out of season, Feehan said they are tightly controlled and unlikely to cause significant disturbances. Leavitt added that even the most ardent supporters of deer damage permits aren’t suggesting deer would be shot during the summer.

One of the advantages of deer damage permits is that any venison harvested has to be donated to the state’s salvage program, which distributes it to those in need.

As the ACK Deer Management Project finds its footing, there are things local landowners and Nantucket residents can already do to help.

“For landowners, it is really, really important that they allow hunters onto their property. For Nantucket, the long-term conservation of the ecosystems on the island necessitates [population control],” Feehan said. “Just be welcoming to hunters. Ultimately, those hunters are effectively paying to do the deer management for the island, something that can be incredibly expensive if you have to have professional outlets do it.”