The deer of Block Island, and the hikers, received good news Monday night when the Town Council voted to keep weekends and holidays free from hunting. The Deer Task Force brought forward a proposal for the 2023-2024 hunting season to allow archery hunting on weekends and holidays. TheRhode Island Department of Environmental Management allows hunting on weekends and holidays in the state, but Block Island has always kept these days free from hunting.Chair of the DTF, Sue Hagedorn, joined the February 7 meeting via Zoom, and told the council that as part of the mission to reduce tick-borne diseases it was necessary to increase hunting. She said the DTF wanted to make this “small change” of adding archery hunting on weekends and holidays “so hunters can do the work we need them to do, to cull the herd.”Second Warden Sven Risom agreed that while the island needs to reduce the number of deer, he was “personally concerned about hunting on the weekend.” He also said that people hunting in close proximity to houses concerned him. Risom said that even with the good job the police department and DTF had done with the Lend-a-Vest Program, there were still people
