Deer Hunters

On four evenings this week, the Department of Natural Resources will hold public meetings on proposed dates and bag limits for the 1993-1994 hunting seasons. The items that surely will draw the most comment are the resumption of the two-week modern firearms season for deer and the curtailment of the Canada goose season.In both cases there are pros and cons of the proposals. In both cases there are extenuating circumstances. And in both cases there are no easy decisions.Take the two-week deer season.

Except for some misunderstanding about who was supposed to pay for the butchering costs, a program that put the hunters' bounty into the kitchens of the needy worked well, said those involved in it.Hunters are starting a drive now to raise $40,000 by next year to pay for processing deer they will donate.This was the first year for the statewide Hunters Harvestshare, a program in which hunters organized a distribution of their extra rTC deer meat to the Maryland Food Committee and its satellite agencies such as Carroll County Food Sunday.

Deer hunters in Carroll County racked up a record kill with the end of the two-week firearms season last Saturday.The season was doubled this year, in an effort to curb the state's rapidly expanding deer population, which is now estimated at 200,000 head.At Carroll County check-in points, 2,200 deer were registered, an increase of 300 over the 1989 record of 1,870. That should signal a successful hunt, for hunters claiming a trophy and for state game managers. The season "went real well," according to Ed Golden, forest wildlife supervisor for the state's Wildlife Division.

Deer hunting season begins this weekend in Maryland with a bang, the firearms season doubled to two weeks to encourage hunters to reduce a mushrooming deer population.But as Sun outdoors columnist Peter Baker explained this week, even a longer hunting season with more liberal bag limits will not stabilize the deer population at pre-1990 levels.In the rural areas of Anne Arundel, especially South County, deer are destroying crops and causing countless automobile accidents. Southern district police have outfitted their cars with special "deer whistles" to ward off the animals.

A 41-year-old Westminster man who said he fired his rifle repeatedly to celebrate the beginning of deer-hunting season tied up Westminster and state police officers for nearly two hours early yesterday morning.Thomas Donald Carmine of the 200 block of Westminster Avenue began shooting his .223-caliber hunting rifle into the woods near his house about 2:20 a.m., police said.As officers arrived, Mr. Carmine, still outside, continued firing shots, police said. Officer Scott Mitchell, who was behind Mr. Carmine's house, then saw him walking around his living room.

In Maryland, 120,000 deer hunters will take part in the bow, firearms and muzzleloader seasons this fall and winter. Along the way, they will drop well in excess of $50 million into the state economy.And perhaps neither the days in the field nor the dollars spent will result in a deer kill that will meet the overriding need of the state's wildlife managers -- the reduction and stabilization of the deer herd.On Saturday, Maryland opens a two-week firearms season for white-tailed deer with regulations that encourage hunters to take antlerless deer.

State parks authorities will allow bow hunting this fall in two sections on the Carroll County side of the Patapsco Valley State Park.Donald Gaver, the state's park manager for the central region, announced the decision last night to about 30 people meeting in the Liberty High School auditorium in Sykesville.The season will run from Nov. 1 through January. After that, the state will evaluate the results for possibly continuing the hunt another year, expanding it or ending it."Let's give it a shot for a year," Gaver said, "and we'll take comments, good and bad."

SYKESVILLE - The interests of fearful residents and frustrated hunters collided Monday night during a discussion on whether to allow deer hunting on state park land bordering the town.The state Department of Natural Resources is considering opening a portion of Patapsco Valley State Park for hunting, at the request of the Carroll County Sportsman's Association, park manager Walter Brown told the Town Council and about 25 residents and hunters.The hunters say there is a dearth of public hunting areas in Carroll.