good evening everybody this is the uh amoris Conservation Commission meeting today is the 26th of uh February 2025 um I'll be uh chairing today our uh our
regular chair is out for the day um we'll uh let's see we're going to have somebody uh Martin fan a wildlife biologist a moose and deer biologist for the state going to be talking about uh
um deer populations and uh and hunting um at 710 and otherwise I think we got a few land use permits and uh three hearings uh to go with that uh with that
I'll leave it to the director uh Mr Z thanks Andre I'll be very brief I know we've got a we got a full agenda tonight but uh really quickly uh two two announcements one is that CPA projects
will be coming before the council uh the commission may recall that Aaron and uh our Communications uh manager Sam gfin made presentations to the to the commission about two proposals uh on the conservation uh side one is for trails
and Bridge enhancement and the other was for signage and so those will uh Jason of course was on uh the CPAC recommending those to the council and they will be coming before the council in their next couple of meetings this is
part of the the um budget process so I expect good things I think they're solid projects and uh my hope is is they'll be funded the other quick announcement is that Aon and I will be Pres presenting at the MACC conference on Saturday we'll
be doing a brief presentation with two other communities Northampton and Stow Massachusetts um all three communities have uh engaged in uh purchasing uh former golf courses and um
proposing reuse of those golf courses so um I think Northampton is about 105 acre Golf Course ours is 150 acres and then Stow is pretty large I think it's over 300 acres so uh those three communities will be represented and presenting at
the U Mass Association of conservation commissions on Saturday so uh should be should be interesting we expect about 50 people in the in the audience and uh you know we'll have a good Q&A so those are my two quick announcements great well thank thank you
uh Dave um I have a question from Bruce Bruce go ahead Dave speaking of golf courses I drove by the clubhouse the other day still there yeah yes we're uh yeah we have a
contract with u we bid that out and we have a contract with a a demolition firm and it's it's all just about scheduling it's whether you're okay when are you whether you're renovating your bathroom or waiting for a demo uh it's all about
getting in the queue but it will uh it will it will be coming down anytime soon I just I want to watch see so I I keep track yeah if if I have any advanced notice I will I will try to put
it out but uh it's not going to take long for that old structure to come down all right um next on the uh on the agenda is the Land Management subcommittee update that'll be Alex um
how much of an update do you have there Alex I just we have uh one item for a vote and that's the land us applications uh we took into consideration the uh comments and the vote the last time the
commission meant and we went through uh we the subcommittee um Dave and Aaron went through and we took out charging fees and changed other language that was connected with that that's been in the
subcommittee folder so it's coming back to the commission now for a vote all right um and that vote and you want to take that vote now sure all right any questions uh from the
public on the uh I don't think the public has seen this right is that correct no the public has not seen it yet we're going to compile all the different sections and put them on a web page prior to our public hearing so that the
public can see the drafts that are going to for review to the public hearing all right um well with that then I'll uh I'll we'll look for a motion then if uh We've a few folks have
reviewed it is there any actually is there any comment uh from from the rest of the uh Commissioners no all right so then I would propose a vote I move that uh we approve the land used applications
rules um as presented in the folder for the commission which have taken into consideration commission comments on fees and the vote not to charge
fees oh Bruce is uh muted but I think second okay so Alex with a uh with a motion Bruce with a second Bruce hi Alex hi Jason Hi and I'm an i and I don't
think R I think Rachel was there briefly and uh disappeared again all right well uh with that then um uh if we can bring in Mr fan Martin fan uh deer and moose biologist with Mass fishing game for his
presentation hello Martin uh welcome thank you so much for uh showing up and uh giving your expertise um if uh is are you going to be presenting um with uh with visuals as
well yep yeah I just sent the request okay okay good to go yeah right all right all yours thank you for inviting me tonight uh so I'm going to talk a bit about uh kind of the state of
of dear management here in m Metts um how we go about that and then really the importance of uh land access and and uh uh you know management like uh with conservation commissions and other Land Trust Partners Etc in addressing dear uh
management across the state okay so just to make sure we're all kind of starting here on the same page I'm just going to go through some very basic white till deer biology uh essentially Whit tail deer um are able to actually get pregnant when they're
six months old small about 10% or so get pregnant that first fall um and then above 90% will U be able to get pregnant beginning uh when they're a year and a half oldold um beginning with the second set of fawns uh from that point forward
deer will actually average twins for the rest of their life here in the Northeast um and fawn survival then becomes really important because they can have essentially replacing themselves that very first uh Birth Cohort and then after that point forward it all
essentially accounts for potential population growth and uh fwn survival kind of historically with a full Suite of natural predators that you'd have pre- European colonization would have been right around the 15 to 20% fwn survival to one year the recruitment
rate effectively um whereas now what we see here across the Northeast is font survival in about 40 to 60% range in exurban areas and then that can go well above that in urban areas where you have more of an Urban Shield effect helping
Fawn survive uh even further uh home ranges vary quite a bit uh from about a half a square mile to about 3 square miles for Doe's uh however they can get much smaller in urban areas sometimes as small as just a corner wood lot if a dough has all the resources that she
needs to be able to live out her life and be able to raise fonds with all of that uh there's the potential for exponential growth uh and this is something that uh makes J uh managing deer quite challenging um
particularly uh in the with the social changes we've seen here across the Northeast uh and the decline in Hunters across Massachusetts whitel deer are very abundant U they are habitat generalists that are able to really adapt to wherever uh they uh sh live
whether that be uh in the higher elevations uh with mature canopy across uh you know the birk shears and western Mass uh to the urban areas around each of our uh areas around Boston Springfield Etc in the East and even to the islands where we have the highest
densities uh with Martha Vineyard in N Tucket their diet uh is quite flexible uh during the summer they really uh spent a lot of times browsing on buds leaves and Forbes and essentially they will eat anything uh within their vantage point from the ground uh to the
very tips of uh the branches that they can reach in overabundant areas you'll regularly see a browse line if you're driving around uh the streets you certainly will see that in Amherst uh where you'll see a clear uh browse line in much of the Town um and that's from the deer actually eating everything
within that uh range of uh their motion now during the winter their diet changes over to Woody browse with what's left historically uh when there were severe Winters where you'd have snowfall uh and snow pack that would limit access to food during the winter there were
historically winter die offs nowadays uh with such milder Winters and without a snow pack uh that lasts you know 3 4 months we no longer really see any winter mortality and so all of that has set up a situation where we have high fwn survival uh due to a lack of
predators uh and also then loss of overwintering mortality so it's really kind of a perfect storm allowing for uh uh population growth even before we get into the Dynamics of uh Hunters uh Etc now this becomes really important
from a conservation perspective and uh Mass wildlife fundamentally when we are managing whail deer we are looking at this from a conservation perspective it is not about the actual Recreation of hunting it is really about trying to ensure that we have healthy ecosystems for the long term and it's really
critical to address overabundant deer because they have a a major impact on ecosystems because of the fact that they are browsing everything within that range uh that they live and there are many studies uh that go into this uh the
impacts across uh the country where you have overabundant deer it leads to a loss of overall biodiversity um everything from Plants insects uh Birds uh because the fact you lose all those micro habitats within uh the for canopy and so it's it's a major part of
managing deer is really trying to address that overabundance early uh so that way you don't have those long-term impacts on the ecosystems I'm going to go through a few examples here over the next few slides showing uh the differences that you have
in the forest when you have differences in Deer densities uh so this is from one particular study that was actually really focus on uh the change uh with uh birds and and the diversities Within uh the forest and in areas uh below 20 deer
per square mile you can see that uh on the photo on the left where there's lots of diversity of habitat all within that under story through the mid canopy all the way to on the top of the the canopy within that forest and so each of those areas from the shrubs and and uh
seedlings and uh the kind of middle mature trees you have lots of different micro habitats within that and so that then creates different habitat for all those different species season so that's where that biodiversity really can deive versus here on on the right where you have more than 150 deer per square mile
you essentially end up with a sterile understory uh you don't have any of those habitats along the floor uh and you don't really have uh the different age classes of trees coming up uh in the middle now bringing this closer here to Massachusetts we have some photos all
from the same Watershed around withus uh and so these are going to actually be from uh the same Watershed the only difference is here being uh essentially whether they're open uh to hunting or not so in this site where there's about 10 to 20 deer per square mile you can
really see that diversity of habitats uh within this photo you have lots of different age classes of saplings coming up uh that are only a couple years old you have Shrubbery along uh the forest floor and lots of different age classes there within the trees uh and so as
you'd have matur trees that might fall there's younger trees that are there to essentially uh take advantage of any falls in the canopy and be able to then uh take over the uh over story now this moving in the same
Watershed uh just a a bit away to an area that is closed to hunting where you have about 20 to 50 deer per square mile you see that where you lose that entire understory and that's where you really have lost now a lot of the habitats for lots of wildlife um and this becomes a
major issue when we're talking about biodiversity management uh for the long term but also in terms of the real long-term Forest management as well because you're not going to have those young saplings that are able to then uh replace and regenerate the forest when the mature canopy trees
fall and then the long-term impact of this uh is generally going into Fern forests and this is what these have become really common across the Mid-Atlantic States and now really coming into uh Northeast and into new England as the deer densities have
continued to rise uh because essentially the deer won't uh browse uh ferns unless really forced and they are end up taking over a lot of the underst stories and if you go through a lot of the forest uh throughout Mass including in and around Amherst in areas where you have openings
in the canopy now many of those uh floors will now become proliferated by Ferns and that's predominantly due to the fact of overabundant deer in areas where there's not hunting access now there are a bunch of other factors that come into play here as well uh
Beyond just conservation management uh so one major part is certainly with tickborne illnesses I'm not going to spend too much time uh focused on this but this is something that certainly is a major priority in the Amherst Community uh Amherst is now uh the
actual home to the New England center of excellence in Vector born diseases um we are a partner at Mass wildlife and I'm a co-pi uh with the other researchers including the director Steve Rich um and uh we are working on a lot of uh research across the state on trying to
address tickborne illnesses which is certainly you know critical for our constituents and the communities uh in terms of human health as well as you know folks pets and and the like and then there's also the direct human safety uh components as well uh
and this is data that comes from Mass do um and you can see am H uh is essentially in that channel uh running north south where you're starting to see some of the upticks in uh densities for deer collisions and mind you this is now
already a couple years old and deer densities have been rising in that region as I'll talk about shortly um and long term as deer densities start to mimic those in the East uh we would very much expect that the deer collisions and the density of those collisions will go up and so that's increasing both you
know the direct safety impacts but also the cost to constituents uh to vehicle Risk insurance Etc okay now getting into the management side of this uh first and foremost uh we use a a hunter Harvest uh base
management model um and this is true in every single state in the country with different other uh differing tool sets uh that each state has beyond that but every state uses it as the primary mode to uh address deer damage and manage their herd it's certainly the most
efficient method um as Hunters are actually paying for the right to be able to hunt and be able to utilize a public resource uh and uh they then are you know essentially acre all those costs associated with hunting and their time Etc um and here in Massachusetts we
really are able to uh be able to rely on the fact that it's had an incredible safety record uh you are required to report any uh incidents that occur with a hunting and so with that we can uh actually have long-term data sets on uh different kinds of accidents that
happen across different kinds of of game hunting and uh zero non Hunters have been uh killed by deer hunting in Massachusetts of any kind and there have been no non-hunters even injured by any archery deer hunting in Massachusetts
anywhere uh and so this is where uh you know there's there's a regular concern around the safety of hunting that's certainly um something I I deal with a lot I work with a lot of communities in and around Boston uh in particular where um that is a concern that comes up
frequently um some towns it's actually the boards of Health that actually manage uh the property uh properties for hunting such as do and so I'm literally working with medical professionals in those communities and uh the fact is hunting really is quite safe
particularly Urban hunting for deer it's different depending on other game species but certainly for deer hunting it's a very safe activity um both because of the nature of the skills that Hunters have to actually pick up Hunters actually have to spend more time uh
doing training than any other kind of uh licensed Recreation uh in Massachusetts compared to like fishing um uh Etc uh as well as also there's a direct uh incentive for hunters to be able to uh be hunting safe because it helps
proliferate uh the long-term uh re recation for hunting now looking at Trends across time uh the deer harvest has continue to rise across the state uh if you go back to uh the 1800s and even further back
Massachusetts uh with colonization was one of the first areas in the colonies that really uh saw deer almost go to extrap here and uh through conservation efforts the population was able to rise and then effectively it got beyond the
point of uh you know being able to be fully sustainable in many areas of the landscape and we've seen that the Harvest numbers continue to rise with the deer population as as well now over time we've also seen changes uh based on
implements and the seasons as Hunters have changed uh the kinds of implements they use shotgun hunting historically made up most of the Harvest and now that has been essentially flat uh for uh the last few decades whereas archery Harvest
is really where we've seen much of the growth in Massachusetts and now we are a majority archery Harvest uh whereas three of the last four years we are over 50% Harvest just from archery and this is by Seasons this isn't by implement but in terms of the actual Harvest across all the seasons
because you can use archery equipment during any of the seasons we across every season now we're at a majority archery Harvest now even with those growth that I just showed you in terms of the Harvest that is actually all in the context of declining Hunters so when
you're seeing that linear growth and harvest it's really exponential likely growth in much of the populations because on a per Hunter basis we actually have a far higher Harvest occurring and uh we've had regular declines now going back to the 80s uh
and over the last uh since 2012 we also have a hunter survey where we can uh see what percentage of the of the hunters licensed Hunters are actually active deer hunters and even with that we've seen substantial declines just since 2012 and so this is a key uh piece here
that every single Deer Hunter uh gaining access in the property becomes more and more important as we have a declining number of hunters and certainly it increases the importance of being able to you know promote uh uh programs that uh can get Hunters into those areas
without putting up too many barriers and separating this state we really have two two stories the Eastern portions of the state took a lot longer to recover in terms of the deer populations uh as they were essentially limited to the southern Burks years
after uh all the uh Market hunting and such in the 17 and 1800s and so it took a long long time to see Harvest really increase in the East uh but eventually as the the actual um number of deer in the East really exploded over the last
30 40 years we've uh now the East is where the majority of deer are being harvested but if you look there over the last decade even in zones 1 through n which makes up essentially Western through Central Mass we're starting to see even uh that increase here over the
last decade which is concerning particularly in light of the declining number of hunters indicating again likely a growing population there and you can look at this even more clear when you look at the adult male Harvest per square mile and that's because every
Hunter is limited to two buck tags and that's been the case now uh for this entire uh period it goes back to essentially the modern management of uh the population and again you really start to see that that change now in zones 1 through n since 2015 where we've
seen the population growing even though the number of hunters that are taking those deer in zones 1 through nine are actually declining now to get at our actual population models uh we use a number number of different data sets um both from the regular reporting that Hunters
are required to do so Massachusetts every Hunter has to report uh the deer that they harvest within 48 Hours um and that makes up the bulk of uh the data set and then uh each year we have a mandatory biological deer check week the
first week of shotgun where we collect a lot of the age model uh information uh by having every single deer into our check stations and we have about 50 biologists from the agency that are spread across the state uh that work
during uh biological deer check week and we actually check about 3,500 deer during that week and we get things like the actual age of the deer so we can uh build out the population uh via reconstruction model we also can collect a lot of biological information on the
deer to see how what their health is as well as doing a lot of disease sampling and like tick sampling uh with nvec for example then we use all that information uh to adjust our amplus allocations and
that's really because as I highlighted at the very beginning uh female D are able to have a lot of fawns and so really they're the focus of Pop population one Buck can inseminate many many females and so a single Buck from a harvest stand from a population
standpoint doesn't actually mean that much in terms of an actual population model um and so if you're trying to reduce growth in the population uh you do that via ESS Harvest and so each year uh we re-evaluate uh based on uh the
Harvest and the population models uh the allocations for ant list permits and then we essentially modify those allocations on a three-year cycle um based on what we're seeing for the individual uh zones and then we manage the population in 15 Wildlife Management
zones across the state now this is really getting at uh where the densities are across the state and then zooming into Amherst as well um so Amherst is in kind of a unique uh I guess neighborhood uh of towns there
it's at the The Joint location there between zone 6 uh Zone s uh zone five just on the other side of uh Amherst and then also with for North and for South very close by as well and this is a region that we're actually seeing the
most change in uh quickly really over the last five to seven years or so um all of this zones 1 3 uh 4 North and 7 were actually all within goal uh even five years ago zones one and three um
moved Beyond goal in uh 2022 as the densities had risen particularly from uh higher deer densities in adjacent areas in Connecticut New York and Vermont um but also with uh new uh access restrictions put in in many of the
communities uh that had seen um social changes following covid with many uh new Urban residents that had moved to the area and were no longer comfortable with hunting in those areas and we've seen that subsequently now follow uh with for
North uh moving beyond the goal range of the of beneath 18 deer per square mile in uh two or I guess a year ago and then now Zone 7even as well and so really the region around around Amherst is really starting to get into the area where uh
the deer densities are are becoming a problem in these areas I I should back up uh the areas actually within those tan sections are above 12 to 18 deer per square mile which is our board mandated uh goal and that's really because of the fact that above 18 deer per square mile
essentially Force regeneration stops even in the 15 to 18 deer per square mile range you're already at a point where you're having major damage to the ecosystems particularly with rare plants in those uh forests but above 18 you don't get any of that mid canopy uh
growth uh with the seedlings growing up from that point and so that's where it starts to become a significant problem uh for the ecosystems long term and also kind of zooming in here here on the trend so these are those zones all right around Amherst and you
can see all of them are are rising they all kind of hit a a bottoming Point around 2012 or so um and now have uh are growing either uh just beneath the top of that goal range or or exceeding it
there with Zone 7even and four north um and it is really important to keep in mind that these densities are actually uh essentially floors and that's because we're only actually sampling uh from harvested deer so those areas that are
closed to hunting which are not going to have that Harvest based mortality are not even being sampled and so those effectively would have even higher deer densities in those areas that are actually closed to hunting um and that's where you know in some of these zones that may be marked as uh being a within
goal in areas that are closed the hunting within those zones they certainly can be well beyond that goal range and that is a really key part that uh to keep in mind uh that in areas that have been close to hunting for decades you know even if it's in a Zone where there's extensive hunting around it
those densities can be well out of control and this is a lot of info here and I'm not going to nail down but I really want you to see kind of the the trends in information in Harvest here for Amherst um certainly in terms of the
sex of deer that it's been predominantly uh Buck Harvest across time in Amherst however we've seen that actually really level out here over the last 5 to 10 years with more uh Do's being taken uh and uh the Implement usage has sort of
been interesting where it was predominantly shotgun Harvest and then we saw bow and crossbow kind of pick up um this last year being a major exception to that where there really was very little uh Bow crossbow Harvest of
only five deer on taken via archery equipment and 26 being taken from shotgun but you can really see where most of that came from if you look at the land type where uh we saw a big drop there in terms of public land harvest in
Amherst last year and that being likely most of that archery Harvest drop um but overall uh we are seeing that Harvest continue to rise in Amherst um as we'd expect in terms of the local deer densities going up um but that's also in
that context again declining number of hunters as well okay now I'm going to talk a bit about uh really the other pieces here of deer management that are often not thought about uh deer really are a vital
resource uh for the food system here in Massachusetts uh more than 4 million meals uh actually come from venison each year uh for Massachusetts families and so it's a really major part of the food system uh directly but also uh the
impacts when we talk about uh feeding other families Beyond just the hunters themselves and so in 2023 we conducted a really deep dive to understand both how our Hunters are utilizing uh venison but also to understand how much of this is actually going to non-hunters and what
we found is more than one in four successful Hunters were actually giving away uh venison to other families which is a huge part of hunting that is major part of the tradition of hunting is being able to share that Harvest with other uh members the other thing is that
we really wanted to understand how much food and security played a role uh even for our Hunters as well and we use the questions that directly come from uh the USDA household survey uh on food in security that goes out each week uh to understand how much uh what percentage
of our our hunting population would actually classify as food insecure and that ended up about 18% of our Hunters uh where sorry about 11% of the hunters would be food insecure and then about 18% uh were dependent on harvest a game to supplement their limited food
resources available now all of this also was part of a broader initiative that we launched in 2022 uh to be able to create a new venue for successful Hunters to be able to uh essentially Harvest more deer and uh
once they've filled their own freezers and they filled their friends freezers and that's through our hunter share the Harvest program and so through this program which is directly developed with Mass Department of Public Health uh Hunters are able to donate their deer at one of our participating processors
where we pay the full cost of that processing and then uh the we even can allow partial donations where we cover a portion of those processing costs if a portion of the deer is donated to the program and uh each of all the venison
with this is then ground and then has a very strict reporting process we have met data on all of uh of the venison following all national food standards and then is distributed to our partners that are growing across the state and that now even includes uh several
Community programs here even around Amherst uh so uh amher directly is receiving venison uh through the food bank of Western Mass and we also are are with Partners including the Northampton uh uh survival center as well uh that uh
has been uh frankly them in particular they' they've been uh contacting us to uh kind of Praise having access to the venison one of the things with a lot of food banks is it's very hard to have uh access to proteins in particular um
fresh meat is very expensive to be able to provide uh for food banks and so uh having access to this venison you know is really a a a game Cher for many of our partners and in just two and a half years we've distributed more than 50,000
meals across massachusett sets um this this program is growing exponentially we've went from one processor to three processors uh to 10 processors and from one distributor to five Distributors to now for uh 16 Distributors so it's uh it
is growing very rapidly and um it is a major part now when we talk about deer management for the long term is how it really plays in with the food system here in Massachusetts now I just want to highlight one quick uh case study here just in terms of the impacts that uh
changes to rules from conservation commissions can have uh two year two seasons ago U middleb well sorry middleb has had the highest uh deer harvest on the mainland now for at least 12 years essentially going back to as long as we
have data on a Town Bytown basis for Harvest and uh that has a bunch of functions middle Bros in eastern Mass higher deer dens ities it's a large town in general um in November 2023 they had hired a new recreation
manager that uh was laying new trails and was concerned about hunting initially they just completely shut down hunting and then when they faced significant backlash uh they paused that and then decided to spend all of uh 2024 uh kind of trying to develop new
restrictions uh that uh could be implemented and we worked closely with with them on this there was um there was a lot of this that we had to kind of work through kind of misinformation and misunderstandings as to some of the risks associated with it
and in the end the actual final um set of restrictions was actually pretty fair I mean they they were a pretty good like we certainly would rather be fully open without restriction but there weren't any major final restrictions but just
the fact that it now created a environment where many Hunters felt like they were no longer welcomed that saw a Major Impact in terms of the Harvest uh this last season uh and so the town ended up having a 26% drop uh in Harvest
compared to just a 6% drop in the entire rest of Zone 11 and that was almost certainly related uh directly to the what had happened in terms of the Conservation Commission um and we work with conservation commissions all the time um certainly every town has
different social dynamics different politics everything that goes along with that and there are many different ways these programs uh can look for hunting whether it be a fully open type situation like a town like Norwell uh just south of Boston where they choose
to actually have it just wide open or like a town like town of Harvard that has a very managed program which is very intensive to manage um and there's lots of uh programs in between but um it's just important to note that the change
ches on Conservation Commission land can have major impacts on the number of deer that are harvested in long term on the actual health of those uh properties that are within the conservation commission's responsibility okay and with that I can take any questions if you all have them
for me yeah I I have a quick comment and maybe you have uh so just uh a personal uh note I've uh I've
been treated for Lyme disease probably uh 13 times or more by now [Music] um so uh it's a big concern to my family and um when we when I get a bite a tick
bite uh my or my family gets a bite we've been sending the ticks or actually just walking uh driving the ticks over to UMass to the program that you mentioned I forget the name of it um
yeah tick report tick report well um not sure if uh if anyone if folks here are aware but uh 45% of the ticks that they find in ammer are uh are found to have lime
disease um and the major uh uh major propagators of them not not exactly the vector uh is um is deer deer that's a huge uh huge thing um second uh
second point I wanted to make or uh actually I was I had a question um did you say that the deer the share the Harvest uh started in 2023 2022 uh we started in December 2022 with a pilot just after Thanksgiving and
uh yes and then we had the full season 23 and full season 24 wow so it's it's it's grown so uh so quickly yeah yeah and this has had immense support uh the team actually was awarded the um highest
public service award from the governor and lieutenant governor as well a bit over a year ago as well for the program because it's it's really changing the perspective of a lot of folks who've not been exposed to hunting that it really is a vital portion of the food
system great program thank you any other questions Dave yeah first off I I wanted to thank Martin this you know your presentation was excellent it covered a lot of ground and we really appreciate you you taking the time out to to uh be with us tonight
and there's some members of the audience and you know I just wanted to right out of the gate thank thank you um I'm hoping you'll be able to share your PowerPoint maybe with our conservation agent Aaron jock who could post it as part of the packet for tonight's meeting
maybe it's already there I'm not sure um but that would be great just so people could refer to it and we could refer back to it so thank you so much I had a couple of questions one um um I guess the first question
was you alluded to you know you mostly talked about deer hunting in in this but you alluded to I I don't want to put words in your mouth but there may be types of hunting that pose greater risk than deer hunting could you say a little and I don't want
to put words in your mouth but it's that's kind of where I thought you were going with that could you say a little bit more about that because as you talked about some towns who have looked at the broad range of hunting some sometimes have said well we'll allow this kind of hunting but not this kind of hunting and and so I'm just curious
as we educate ourselves uh tell could you tell us a little bit more about that yeah um so as I highlighted deer hunting in particular is overwhelmingly safe because of uh really the uh the way it's hunted it's it's a very specific
targeted style of shooting um the there are differences in in safety depending on the kinds of hunting and um the riskier uh hunts just in terms of overall uh number of uh incidents are
predominantly with bird hunting and bird sport sport hunting um turkey hunting and pheasant hunting in particular where um there are incidents now mind you those are still like it you'll have potentially one incident a year across
tens of thousands of hunters with those uh styles of hunting but uh that those certainly on a percentage basis and and in totality have uh a higher risk than deer hunting itself I had one other question if I
could Andre and that is um I think you mentioned that really the the allowable take per Hunter and I could have heard this wrong hasn't changed since 1985 it so is there consideration I
mean why not simply allow Hunters to take more deer where those populations are growing at a rate that is unhealth healthy for the broader EOS system yeah let me clarify that so that's just for the buck Harvest so the the number the
Bucks has been caped too because that doesn't change the population because bucks effectively have no impact there how we manipulate the population is via anist permits and that's where we've actually been pretty dramatically increasing the number of analist permits um in the East we've actually removed
the the cap altogether in zones 10 and 11 but even the number of surplus permits that are available in your region are uh has gone up quite a bit we've had Surplus permits uh well essentially every Hunter each year applies for an an L permit VR Lottery
system and then we have set numbers of permits that are available in each Zone if those if the number of permits that we have set as a allocation in a Zone exceeds the demand from the lottery then we sell those uh via Surplus permits and and Hunters can have many of those for
multiple zones um and Zone 7 has now had Sur permits uh for 3 years straight and the other thing to keep in mind here I didn't mention some of the other um contexts that we've been working on in your area but uh we are regularly now
getting contacted by land managers in uh your region uh including mass autobond for their Arcadia property as well as uh uh with the water supply in Amherst Northampton uh and regions around there because of the impacts on those uh those
water suppliers in particular but but also for land trust properties where they're seeing major issues and we are actually working on additional permits that would be property specific uh for uh trying to even further uh the impact of deer management in those areas Beyond
just the allocations that we do across the entire Zone thank you thank you for claring that clarifying that yeah I the buck yeah I think I I missed the the buck and an yeah yeah Martin uh I made the mistake of applying uh as my first
choice uh Zone 7 this year and then I noticed all the uh all the excess ones uh that were there yeah and I realized this is new so uh Jason question yeah thanks Andre
thank you Martin for uh coming here and attending tonight and presenting um I have a a few questions and one is is can you give us any information about the deer hunting in our surrounding in the
town surrounding ammer as far as like um are they do they have more takes than we do and then how does that potentially affect I I thought you mentioned a kind of a range in miles but you know if we
if we go either way we something happens we don't allow hunting here does that then spread out like exponentially into the surrounding towns and surrounding areas and then vice versa so I guess to your first question
I haven't done uh the profile that I did on Amhurst for the other times around in general we manage by at the Zone level so I really the the town data I generally only looking at when I'm doing a specific profile for uh something like this um I do know that Northampton in
particular has started to see more restrictions I know that's two times over um but that's really the one that I've dealt with more recently because of the fact that're they're dealing with overabundant deer really picking up quite a bit in town there um but I'm not
sure about the restrictions are on the others around those in terms of the deer densities though certainly that's portion of the state we're seeing uh densities rise uh quite a bit um now getting at the um kind of impact across
I guess the landscape with with their home ranges and such like that um Amherst is really where you'd be kind of classifying it as as a pretty Suburban uh community in terms of the impact to to Deer not necessarily in terms of a dense housing the way we might think of
it uh compared to like you know dense uh Urban uh Suburbia but it certainly would be an area where Deer uh deer home ranges would be quite a bit smaller so you'd be looking at most Do's right in that between about a third of a square mile
to just over one square mile and so if you restrict uh access to hunting on the few like open wood lots that are available and people also don't have large enough private properties to be able to hunt on their own property in
terms of the 500 foot setback then effectively a lot of those deer then no longer accessible by hunters and so you're uh that's going to have you you've essentially taken away the possibility of that Harvest mortality impacting any of those given deer um now
the impact of that more broadly though doesn't stay on those wood Lots because the fact each of those dos when they're producing more fawns those fawns are going to disperse around and so you're going to see more impact than just those individual properties you're going to see impact across the entire uh
community and as the populations grow regionally you know all of that is really additive uh to the overall population are things like uh you know you mentioned Northampton being Two Towns over but guess we have uh a good buffer in the Connecticut
River there so is that does that act as an effective buffer or are they still would they still find their way across that somehow yeah they swim far uh they they swim in the ocean so uh that's not
idea a little bit uh yeah so like we have o every at least every few days during the summer they're swimming across the Elizabeth islands and like back and forth the Martha's Vineyard and um deer are actually great swimmers it's it's contradictory it might seem but um
the Connecticut River is substantially smaller than like the St Lawrence R you know the St Lawrence Seaway I did my my PhD work in Northern New York AC along the St Lawrence Seaway and I had deer that swim across and end up like my tag deer that end up uh in Ontario uh so
Connecticut River is not going to be that that much of a barrier there I had no idea they could swim yeah thanks Jason um Bruce you had a question or okay looks like Alex has it yeah I was curious thank you very
much Martin I'll I'll join and say we really appreciate you coming and making the time I had a question about coyotes and the effect of coyotes on the population and uh you do have a season on coyotes so my question is two-part
uh what's the take of deer by coyotes and if the uh reduce the coyote hunting season would they have a larger impact on deer so in general the actual predation
uh IM mortality that you get from uh coyotes kind of ends up as a a limit you end up with usually right around a a 20 to 30% of the the mortality uh with fawns from that that was actually most my work in New York was doing Fawn survival uh looking at uh like Coyotes
versus Harvest uh Hunter Harvest vehicle collisions Etc so that's um a lot of the I had the most Urban and Northeastern study that had been done on Fawn survival yet um and really looked at a lot of these Dynamics with coyotes and um we just the coyote mortality itself
doesn't uh end up overweighing a lot of just the reproductive output um particularly uh as the coyot in general are going to be taking mostly unhealthy fawns or abandoned fawns deer naturally abandon uh fawns at a pretty high rate
um it's particularly when Do's have two buck Fons it is actually evolutionary advantageous for them to abandon one of those buck Fons because if a dough puts all of her milk and energy into raising a single buckon to the larger the faster that buck can grow up the faster he can
then pass on his genes and so um with that of most of the coyote mortalities of fawns end up first with those abandonments that happen early on after birth the other thing is that when you look at the actual um uh seasonal change
in terms of mortalities from coyotes with deer it essentially hits its peak uh in July and then completely collapses by September and then there's almost no mortalities from coyotes the rest of their life so essentially if a fawn makes it to September it's essentially
completely fine there are some mortalities that happen when you have certain kinds of weather events good example is this year with the ice uh that we've had with conditions like this we do see some adult mortalities of deer from coyotes because you'll have uh the coyotes be able to run on top of the ice
and be able to uh and deer break through but it doesn't have a population level impact you're usually looking at about one or two% uh adult Harvest uh adult uh predation mortality um in terms of the changes to a coyote season that would likely have almost no impact because
it's it's predominantly compensatory mortality where the if a fond didn't die from being predated by a coyote it would die from the other health impacts that already weakened it or from being abandoned in the first place so just to sum the biggest impact of the coyotes is
um is on fawns and you said that about 23% of fawns go to coyotes yeah I mean that varies a lot so that that's very sight specific but the actual more the Fawn survival piece doesn't change that much uh all that's changing is whether
they're dying from coyotes or if they'll be dying from natural conditions or they' be dying from abandonment it's one of the hardest parts of doing font survival work is actually being able to parse out did the font actually die of an abandonment or did it actually die of a predation and the only way to do that is to track the fonds very very closely
so font survival projects nowadays you are tracking the fonds every four to six hours to be able to make sure that you're able to par up out the those differences to catch an abandonment before it actually is predated thanks um I wonder if you could so if I could just ask him to clarify
something Andre uh yeah sure and after that we were talking about U home ranges and um our conservation lands aren't all that big
um and I assume that a deer wanders in and out of them um and um you know a deer may go from parts of ammer up into pelum
um so I if we had a Zone of com depression by killing deer um I assume that deer in a more dense area would move in is that
true to some extent um so there's a there's a lot of very specific um population Dynamic pieces that come into play with this uh but certainly areas that become devoid of deer are going to have a natural flow
from high density areas to lower density areas the Dynamics get a little bit more complicated because of the fact they have social dynamics within their populations and so there's a there a whole thing called the the rose but Porters Rose butt hypothesis which is effectively that uh you have Mator
lineal groups within the the females the oldest matriarch is going to make up the center of the rose bud and then each of her uh future daughters and their daughter's daughters make up the pedals of the rose bud and so it they will fill a given area because they're defending effectively a territory from another set
of of matr lineal families um and so it doesn't exactly work in one to one where if they're going to Auto automatically go from high density to low density because there there's differences in terms of the resource is is in a given area there's differences in terms of those social dynamics but in general if
you're going to have an area where uh you have have lower uh densities you're going to very quickly have rals from other areas yeah my property up in New Hampshire when I put out my game cameras um I can recognize some of the deer
one's got a big chunk out of her ear and there's signs that I can recognize do in particular and I see the same group of three or four deer dull Doe's um um two two mature Do's you you know and then
younger younger animals I see them in my camera almost daily they just um they don't seem to wander very far and um um maybe that's a sign that the property is pretty healthy but uh anyway thank you
very much for coming all right um I think we're gonna uh we're gonna have to limit the questions to Jason and Bruce uh whose hands are up and then I I would like to take some questions and so on from the from the public who's uh or the guests
who are watching and listening Jason go ahead um so yeah you mentioned shotgun bow arrow crossbow and and primitive is there rifle hunting for
deer no Massachusetts statutorily it doesn't allow rifle hunting for deer so that's um that's something that unless there was a change um by an act of the legislature and the governor uh we cannot allow rifle hunting um and so it's restricted to uh
well there's some Nuance there but um effectively uh underneath the statute there there's no rifle hunting of deer okay and this I know this is not necessarily your wheelhouse uh but is that one one is that why we have
a good safety record in in Massachusetts or one of the reasons and then could you like could you explain like just deer hunting season like is it just people walking around in the in the conservation area with you know shooting
shotguns and bows and arrows and then me walking my dog with my kids like how does that I have no idea how hunting works and I got to assume I am that there's a lot of other people like me certainly in the last four years that have moved to town and
don't even know that you can hunt on conservation land or would be very very surprised to find out so could you just again I know that's not necessarily your wheelhouse but could you just give us a quick rundown of that yes so to your first question about the rifle uh
hunting really is safe everywhere across the country if you look at National statistics there aren't that many uh uh actual uh incidents uh per number of hunters the biggest thing that you drop with the the the change in terms of
rifle is just the the ability of having a shot that goes further but overall it is uh that's not the primary uh piece here it's more has to do with just the nature of of hunting here in Massachusetts the other thing to keep in mind um if you're utilizing a rifle in
Massachusetts let's say you were bear hunting where you can use a rifle um we don't have long sight lines here in Massachusetts you're not we don't have large Open Fields like like Prairie states where you're shooting something that's a mile and a half off if you're going to be shooting something with a rifle generally most places you know
you're only having a single field or break in the forest and so you're almost always going to be shooting on on a downward angle anyways and so with that being the case there's just not we don't have a landscape where the risks associated with it can really apply um so it more has to do with that than than
the Implement restriction um now it's great question actually in terms of what that looks like in terms of hunting if you haven't been a part of it it's it's hard to actually imagine in that regard um archery hunting is predominantly from tree stands uh so uh certainly you know
above 90 probably 95% of archery taken deer are coming from tree stands um or from now folks also do what's called saddle hunting where you essentially are in kind of a rock climbing gear and hanging off a
tree um it allows more movement um and with that you're that makes it even more safe because you're you're shooting at a downward angle um if you're archery hunting from a tree stand if you're you're shotgun hunting from a tree stand all of that you're having that we're having a direct downward angle um and um
archery hunting most the time you're only taking a shot right in the about 20 to 25 yard range is about the max that people are taking shots a really long archery uh shot is in like the 30 to 40 yard range so these these are not long
distance uh pieces which is why you know having you know large setbacks really is not necessary for uh archery because you're really uh you're never taking a shot very far you're staying very close to wherever you're taking that shot from where you're if you are on the ground
you might be in a ground blind um uh that's kind of the other option there if you're going to be an archery because in archery you need that deer to come in really close to be able to take a shot um with shotgun hunting it varies a little bit um you may be in a tree stand you may be in a ground blind just
because you have the the longer um a safe shot but generally you're still going to be looking a Max shot for most modern shotguns is only about 50 75 yards 100 yard shot is really starting to push it for a shotgun and so you're
not really taking longdistance shots either in that case um the other uh in terms of like actually going through a forest you might be doing a deer Drive type situation uh with other Hunters um and that'd be the one time you might be kind of going through the other thing
that you may hear is uh people who stalk and so if you're stalking through the woods um that's going to be if you think that you might catch deer often times if You' sat the tree stand in the morning you've uh nothing has come by in that early morning you might go stalking for
an hour on your way out uh to see if you happen to get a deer on the way out from the tree stand uh but that's a much smaller percentage of harvest just because you're going to make more noise as you're going through the forest as well um and muzzle loader hunting kind
of is a mix of the two uh with muzzle loader hunting you're using uh you have to actually plan a lot more head with it you have to be prepared for the fact that muzzle loaders you do have black powder that can get wet I mean everything around it is a littleit more
complex with muzzle loaders um and so uh still a lot of those are going to be from stands or from ground blind um some folks may be M uh maybe stalking but it's um that's the lowest uh impact in terms of the the number bucks of field
and and uh the intensity of that Harvest is certainly the lowest of the three seasons but does that make sense in terms of the what you'd actually see in the woods yeah yeah and you know I Su you know I I
know people who hunt but like I said I've never participated in it so you know the the notion that like I'm going to be walking through the woods with my kids and my dog you know and and have a Aeron Arrow fly by or you know slug is is not you
know it's still it's still something that is a little concerning but you know hearing about how it's done and and shooting shooting down at that angle it's it's it's much more comforting and I guess it happens a lot more in the morning everybody I know that hunts goes out like super early in the morning yeah
so I mean when you're going to be most successful is going to be right at dawn or right at dusk and ultimately um the reason why you don't have incidences like that is because if you're out there walking your dog there's not going to be a deer running through there so the the
risk of when when people are actually out recreating Hunters aren't going to set up where they think a lot of people are going to be recreating yeah because of that that so um the other thing is Hunters are very attuned like I guess the the piece of this I didn't talk
about is really The Scouting side of it uh Hunters the successful Hunters do all of that work before the season uh they learn where there's a lot of human activity they learn where a lot of deer activity and you're usually trying to make it where you are set up right over where the deer's going to be I mean like
you are going right on those deer trails and so it's it's not the idea that you're just Hunters don't just like randomly go into the woods there's a lot of very particular skill that goes into that side of it um and um because of that you just there really aren't those
risk and you're not um I honestly I don't think I could ever recall a a s situation where there's been something like that with someone recreating and then like an arrow going through that's just not something that's going to occur because particularly with archery hunting uh you have to get that deer in
So Close you're not going to be like you can see what's what's in front of you at 30 yards I mean that's very very close when you're up in a tree stand uh you're not going to be you know mistaking a Target uh with something like that yeah sure thank you thank you very much it's very helpful
informative Jason just to just to add a little bit to that um uh the the deer hunter is not going to want to make any noise whatsoever they're not going to want to release an arrow or take a shot at anything they're not going to kill um so you're not going
to have a lot of a lot of uh um uh arrows or bullets uh flying around um you're not going to be hearing a lot of shots that aren't directed right at a deer so to speak I mean uh the other
thing is um as a walker a hi um you're going to be making a bunch of noise the deer hunter doesn't want that the deer hunter is not going to be making the noise um so they'll hear you usually they're still I mean if when you're moving you can't hear well if
you're still that's when you hear so that's what the the hunters are going to be doing they're going to be stopping as much you know they're going to move for a few steps wait a bit move a few steps wait a bit um yeah anyway and I'll tell you I have a uh
I have a shotgun that's a rifle barrel um and uses a 20 gauge um shell and just to explain what that does is it reaches further and it reaches more accurately and I won't shoot something
that's uh any more than let's say 70 80 yards and that's and that's uh that's once I was able to actually Peg something at that at that distance so it's not um they're always uh meaning a
a Target um they're they're a lot closer like Martin was saying Alex one last question and then yeah real quick we should Martin uh when you were doing your analysis for amorist uh and you had a chart up there
can you can you refresh my memory on a how many Hunters we have uh living in amorist or more importantly how many deer were taken in aest yeah I I can't tell you the first because uh that's a totally
different yeah that's not data we we track that way but uh in terms of the Harvest this last season was 35 the year before was at 40 and if you look over the the preceding five years it was between 25 and 29 each year so the last two years are record highs for Amherst
even longer term back than that I I I looked at the so so given given our area and the density that you go for what's our deer population that's a pretty uh complex answer without give me give me a number
I I I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that there's a lot that goes into that and um without that you can have such big differences within a community and again our models are entirely based on on the Harvest the opens are the are open hunting and so if I just if I just
took the non-residential area of amorist and and took a low density it's um I haven't done the math but that's a lot of deer and I wonder what you know 35 taking 35 deer out of
there really does to the population I mean ultimately with a lot of this stuff what I regularly tell folks is when we're talking about overabundant deer the best uh you can really use is when we're talking about climate change about about trying to bend the curve in eastern Mass where I
can't no matter what we would do we're not going to necessarily be able to pull back the population but what we can do is try to lower that curve it is about each having each one of those deer harvest reducing how bad it's going to get each one of those does that are being being harvested last year 18 Do's
now those 18 Do's that would potentially produce 36 or more fawns this coming season now they don't have that potential to do so and so that's where that impact is so it's not just about uh you know the individual impact it's that long-term exponential piece of that in
terms of the reproduction um and uh but you know it's not necessarily always about having the one individual Deer uh this is also not their only cause of mortality Amherst has a lot of vehicle collisions with deer that's another piece of the mortality for adults
there's also going to be some those rare ones with coyotes there going to be some that are going to die of disease there's you know each of those things so this is all additive mortality um and each of those harvests does matter when you look at this in an additive I was just interested in the number dear I didn't mean to go on thank you very much all
right thanks um eron can you bring in uh anyone from the public who might uh have questions and Bruce I can uh no that was my Hope was to move to the public comment thank you you put down your hand uh Alex you don't mind thanks
Alex your hand is raised oh I'm sorry yeah I don't see any members of the public with their hand raised Andre all right uh if there's anyone in the public uh if you can raise your hand how do they do it uh if they're on the phone
um let me just do a quick look um I think I'm seeing most of the folks in attendance are waiting for the uh hearings okay yeah I I don't see on a quick
Google search how to do it um uh star nine star n if you're on a phone and you want to uh make a comment or ask a question uh you can hit star n we're going to wait uh wait a few seconds here and if not I think we'll uh
we'll move on to the I'll say eron I'll send the copy of the PowerPoint over to you so that way you have that for you guys to post with that thank you very much Mar and for all your work we really appreciate it your present Martin has been outstanding with a lot of good
information um thank you so much for taking the time uh to present us with some numbers that we can uh digest and uh with some facts that we can uh we can also take into account thank you so much thanks for inviting me and if in the
future you guys have any more you know questions of this or if there's discussions about you know what kinds of restrictions or those kinds of things uh we certainly are always here as a resource that can be brought in to to help out with any of those discussions awesome thank you thank
you have a night well um with that then we're going to move to our uh to our hearings um we have three hearings tonight uh first we're going to go through some general procedures uh for uh these
hearings uh each hearing is going to be uh 20 minutes um in the agenda five minutes for uh staff comments five minutes for presentation by the applicants or Representatives five for the public and
five for cons conservation Commissioners um uh just so that we all uh are aware any submitted um or any submitted materials or materials that are
resed excuse me revised um have to be submitted by the Wednesday by Wednesday the week prior to the meeting at close business um please state your name uh address of your project um and
pronouns uh for the public uh and as far as Robert's Rules of orders um you should be uh mute on mute unless uh you're talking um and raise your hand
if you uh don't have the floor and I I or the chairperson uh will facilitate those Communications with that um we'll move to our uh our hearings um the first uh hearing number
one um this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth on an act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.31
wetlands protection under the uh town of amorist General bylaws um this is a notice of intent uh Wendel Wetland services on behalf of Marie Hass and David Todd for the replacement of an existing retaining wall immediately adjacent to bordering uh vegetated
Wetlands at 31 Blossom Lane eron if you wouldn't mind kicking off um your comments sure sorry um so um I put the site visit photos in the
folder I can share those if anybody wants me to um I did meet on site with uh Ward Smith the consultant the owners and the contractor that's um proposing to do the work and reviewed the proposed
bmps for the project um the project is replacement of an existing um Timber retaining wall which is very close to a wetland boundary um the wall is is deteriorating and basically failing at this point so it it needs replacement um
I was satisfied with the bmps that they're proposing um I did have some you know recommendations and I have drafted an order of conditions um and so I think just generally it's a it's a very simple
project um they're proposing to do um so my recommendation was that they do a silt fence mostly As sort of a Visual and physical barrier um rather than trenching it in because it's actually in the Wetland I recommended that they just
put the fence in and fold it um and put a compost sock over the folded Edge um towards the work area so that um it will and and stake at a closer interval so that it will hold it down and provide a visual barrier um they need I think
about 6 feet between the retaining wall and the fence and so um they're and put down uh some plywood or some rubber matting um it's going to be human foot traffic um at that area and between the wall and the Wetland the area above is
going to have an excavator um and they have a stockpile area identified so I can share any of the plans but I don't want to um take up the whole time so I'll um pull Ward Smith in and if there's anybody else who is here who
wants to um join the panel just raise your hand and I'll pull you in hello welcome Ward hi um good to see you yeah it's uh it's one of those houses that was built I think in the 70s um and
they they put the retaining wall it the Wetland boundary extends right up to the retaining wall essentially so there's skunk cabbage and jewel weed um right up to the retaining wall so no Machinery will be in the Wetland but they have to have uh put traffic um in there and
that's why as Erin said we're going to use the the contractor talked about using plywood because he thought it was cheaper so um no trees will be cut by the project the the whole intention is to remove um the the existing Timbers
and take them off the site and dispose of them legally um to pull all the soil out of there and stockpile it in next to the road and be encircled by erosion control there as well um and then to replace the timber mat the timber
cribbing retaining wall in exactly the same location um and to put a perforated pipe at the bottom of the of the of the wall and some Stone um and then to backfill with the with the soils that were removed initially and all the existing any excess soil will be will be
removed from the property so yeah so it's about 350 square ft of temporary Wetland impact for the um plywood where people will be walking right there so um the contractor's talking about doing
this when it's dry and I think my only it's not a huge concern but there's skunk cabbage down there and I'm thinking of all the skunk cabbage getting squashed but he's talking about doing when it's dry so if the commission wants to add a condition that the work would be done in July or later I think
that would be good but once the St skunk cabbage is gotten all the sunlight it needs and all the energy it needs it'll it'll come back next year fine if it's not squashed in the spr he doesn't want to work in the spring anyway because it's going to be too too wet so I think that's reasonable and then we're
proposing to sew that area with one pound of a New England wet mix Wetland seed mixture just to get some more of wetland vegetation there you can see to the right there that's where the um access will be down from the St soil
stockpile area that will be it's an existing lawn so that will be just receded with lawn and as Erin talked to the contractor the the sediment erosion control will remain in place until that's um well established as she said
when it when it needs to be mowed all right is that it yeah it's what 79 feet or something like I think I saw earlier today 79 feet of uh of wall or how much uh what's the length of the didn't measure it out
exactly but that's about about what it is yeah and it's essentially it's uh right below the house I mean it's yes yeah there's really no there it is you can see my Flags right there
right at the bottom of the wall so there's really not much of a yard in the back you know there's the house and then they've got a couple of garden beds in there and that's it okay all right well thanks very much uh Ward um is
there anybody from the public who uh has questions or comments on this I'm not seeing any hands up uh right now if you do have a question or comment you can put your hand up or if you're on the phone you can hit star nine
all right Commissioners uh if you have any questions frankly I see I see this as being pretty straightforward but uh any questions please uh raise your hand all right with that then if we um
if we want to have a a motion eron's just put that up yeah uh I will move to close the public hearing and issue order of conditions for 31 Blossom Lane D number 08907 49 with standard boiler plate
conditions under both the Massachusetts Wetlands protection act and wetlands protection town of ammer General bylaws article 3.31 in regulations as well as special conditions let me just stop for a second did you guys want to uh make a
condition that it be uh in in July or Beyond I think I would I will add I'll add to my motion to include a special condition that the work be done in July or uh
Beyond when it is not wet Alex are you doing a second or do you have a discussion you want to uh pursue we can't hear you I just wanted to ask Ward if I think of August is being the driest month is
that drier than uh than July depends on the year my my concern was I think requiring it to be dry is the important thing my thought was July is late enough for the skunk cabbage to get enough energy from the Sun so that even if they
get squashed which they will they it won't it won't affect them um they'll they'll they'll be able to grow the next spring so I I I I feel comfortable with July or July or later provided the conditions are dry I mean something something like
to that effect thank you I'll second with the addition all right Bruce uh Jason with a motion Bruce with a second Bruce hi hi Rachel hi Alex
hi thank you very much Ward um we'll see you in a few minutes I think are you here for the next one yes okay uh hearing number two is a notice of intent Wendell Wetland services on
behalf of fam thou for the construction of a single family home uh driveway and septic system within the buffer zone to bordering Wetland uh vegetated Wetlands at Old monteu Road I didn't see a an actual address
there um what's what number is it there um I don't think it has an address assigned by the building inspector yet it's just uh identified as Z romanu Road um and it it does have a map in lot which is um
2836 um and there there is a a note which is a little outdated about the continuance I wasn't sure um if Ward would be coming tonight or if we were doing a written continuation so um anyway that's where we're at we we did
receive a revision um but I know having a conversation with Ward I think there's some additional edits that might be happening so we're we're asking for a continuance just because of the um Aaron hasn't had a chance to look at the Wetland boundary given the snow
conditions that makes a lot of sense we'll have snow in July it may take a while well with that we're looking for a motion then um I move to continue the public hearing for um is it zero Old monteu Road on to
March 12 2025 at 7:40 p.m. I second that all Alex with a motion Jason with a second Jason hi Alex hi Rachel
hi hi I thanks again uh Ward thank you have a good one hearing number three this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general
laws of the Commonwealth an act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 Wetlands protection under the town of amorous General bylaws this is a request for determination an RDA uh by Dave zc
uh on behalf of the town of ammer to determine whether work uh whether work to mow or brush hog a pedestrian path from the parking lot area at Vista Terrace to the trolley line map 25b lot
74 is subject to the wetlands protection act and the wetlands protection town of amoris General bylaws with that um Aon or Dave thanks Andre I'm GNA present this because Aaron has a conflict of interests so Ain if
you could share the the image would that be possible the map yes just give me one second sure while Aaron is doing that um we did do a site visit out there today from 11: to about noon or so uh Andre
and Rachel joined me um this is about a s acre uh piece of property that was gifted to the town essentially to make this Trail connection it was part of a about a seven home subdivision that was developed a few years ago and we work
with a developer because it creates a um a unique opportunity it created a unique opportunity for us to add some access to uh our property which is adjacent to the uh kestral trust property over on the
Plumbrook Pond and it um adding uh a small parking area uh which you see in the upper left hand corner Corner in Gray uh to uh the what formerly was subdivision open space it's now conservation land permanently protected
uh it allows us to add about a five car parking lot there and provide access uh both for the residents but also for visitors to uh park there and enjoy a pretty easy access to the Mount hoo range State Park and our Trails of
course um what we are proposing is there was uh this was all part of a a small farm uh it was about 15 Acres prior to the subdivision and the yellow track that you see coming off the parking lot from the upper leftand corner um going
over a stream with an existing CT um uh that is the Old Farm Road we're essentially activate or reactivating the Old Farm Road it is grown up and Rachel and and Andre uh I think can attest to our our uh foray through the invasives
that are now taking over that Farm Road it's not particularly thick but there's a lot of multifloral rows in particular that has come in in that Old Farm Road and we're simply proposing to a mow a six foot path from the parking lot uh over the existing CT and then uh make
our way uh uh East uh Southeast on the yellow line to connect with the trolley line uh Trail uh that'll take people uh up to the mount hoyo range so it's really um the only impact uh of this
project um uh that is in a resource area would be uh basically cutting through the invasives and creating a six- foot wide path there are no other uh improvements uh proposed um in in the resource area there will be the parking
lot is already existing and we'll do some modest Improvement there with a split rail fence uh kiosk uh and some signage uh this project would be done sometime in the the dryer summer months I don't have an exact timeline on that
um and I think I'll stop there if Andre or Rachel who are out on the site visit happy to have you add any comments thanks Dave um yeah just to to a quick note on the um on the
Culvert um I typically picture a culvert being a pretty narrow uh uh narrow passage uh to get over or get the p over a stream this is about a 10 foot wide um Bridge almost with a with that big
Culvert uh inside uh underneath it we we did take some pictures Aon may be able to share those great that'd be good to see I actually wasn't able to download them Dave um I apologize just ran out of time at the end of the day no worries
um and essentially uh once you leave the field in that picture um you uh you end up uh running into just a whole bunch of multifloral rows well a whole bunch just
enough to get you caught up um and uh what is it um uh Bittersweet uh and so on is a pretty straightforward uh project if you would what did what do
you think Rachel yeah I agree I think the only other pieces that I was just noticing that it actually provided um much easier point of access for someone who's Mobil challenged um I'm currently nursing a hurt foot and um it just the
fact that it's Lev terrain leaving that parking area it'll be very gently sloping into the into the Cal Pond area and those and those Trails which are generally kind of flat whereas Sweet Alice has kind of a steep drop down to the brook and can be a little harder for
for people who are mobbly challenged so it's nice I think this will make sweet Alice even more accessible to those who are you know or Limited in their ability to move thank you and I don't know if uh if uh any of you
remember that uh when that parcel was donated uh and we we uh we moved to accept that uh right it was donated what about a year and a half ago or so probably two years ago yeah I just a reminder to um Rachel
referred to the pond as the kro pond and it kind of is affectionally but that pond is owned and and managed by the conservation department and under your care custody and control the entire pond with the except of the Eastern a small
portion of the Eastern Shore but um this is all part of that kind of final one of the final phases as Rachel said to provide a little bit easier access from the West with our goal to some someday connect it to Atkins so that people
could uh safely walk or hike uh from Atkins over across 116 we do need a we will need a a crosswalk there at some point uh to to allow people to park there say get get something to eat and then maybe hike over across Vista Way
where we have a a right to pass and repass and easement and get up on the mount Hoy range and come back so small parking lot and we will work with the the neighbors the on Vista Terrace they've been very involved I've kept them up to date and uh we will meet with
them before any of this work happens sometime this summer great thanks Dave um now is there anybody from the the public I see one attendee still left uh here if you have
any comments or questions if you don't mind raising your hand and you'll be uh brought into the conversation um if you're on a phone you can just hit star n and that'll uh notify us as well I don't see any hands up from the
public um any questions from uh from fellow Commissioners or comments none uh with that um Aaron if you don't mind um putting up the
uh putting up the motion if not I can let's see if we can here we go you got it coming I'll move to close the public hearing and issue a determination of
applicability for map 25b lot 74 finding a positive determination under the town of ammer uh General bylaw Wetlands protection checking box five and negative determination under the wetlands protection act checking box
three we have a second second all right Jason with the motion Rachel with a second Rachel hi Jason Hi Bruce
hi Alex didn't hear you Alex sorry I keep obeying the rules to be on mute that's good I and I'm an i all right thank you very much um just
one final note Andre we will be naming this Trail after a long time uh staff member Jonathan Tucker retired as our planning director uh some years ago and uh he grew up in South ammeron was instrumental in our master plan open space and Recreation plan many U many
open space projects through his long career with the town so when we have a ribbon cutting dedication of course the commission uh will will uh be there and you'll all be invited and and uh we'll have a celebration at some point when
the when the trail and parking is all completed excellent few years down the road we might have a zc trail too no hopeful okay thanks David
um next up um monitoring reports uh I saw there were a bunch of monitoring reports I read through a few um anything to um no not not really
I did um relay the comment about the gate that Alex brought up last week um or last meeting um and I relay that to um the pure Sky Team at Hickory to to try to prioritize getting that um
repaired um we did uh at the beginning of the meeting skip over the um land use applications so I just want to make sure we don't forget about those but I don't really have anything else notable on um monitoring reports all right yeah thanks
uh for reminding me of that okay um we do have uh six land use uh um applications they're all by the same uh well I'll let Aon um hold on uh
Andre Alex I got to step away from a minute I'll be back very shortly all right thanks um Erin if you don't mind giving us a a quick rundown on the um land use
applications sure um so the the series of land use applications that came in are um were submitted by the Hitchcock Center and therefore these little bear walks which are um this little walk that they're putting together at multiple
different conservation areas where they give small children I think I want to say they're under three or under four um a little a little backpack that's like a little bear backpack and they put um different uh Tools in there that the kids can use on the nature walk like you
know little binoculars and looking glass and stuff like that and so it's sort of like a guided nature hike for small children um I don't personally have any uh concerns about it um so yeah that's just a quick update there
um so it's h six permits and six different locations they have the dates for uh when they're going to uh be using them and it seems that each permit has two dates up to two dates um that they
uh may be going there um Bruce got a question Erin I looked in vain in the folder for a picture of the backround oh a um I can send a picture around if you're interested in
seeing posted on if you follow if you follow the Hitchcock Center on Facebook they've posted a couple adorable photos of little backpacks if you wish to well I don't so maybe you could send around okay sorry I can't stop
smiling it is pretty sweet I mean it's it's kind of like you know as good as it gets in terms of activities on conservation land um the I think uh the they're saying um maximum of around 20 I think
that uh between the children uh Educators and Par parents um do we need a uh is there any uh well let's let's let's start with uh the public is there any anyone out of the public who uh
has anything to say about this I don't see any attendees so I guess not um any questions uh regarding this from our
commissioners can we vote on all these at once I that's that's what I would propose yes thank you all right well if we if we're good to uh good to vote um
let's do we we don't need a motion right um I think a motion approving all of them I I move that we approve the land use permit clu 25-5 through clu
25-10 and there are six of them I second that excellent Bruce with a motion and Jason with a second Jason hi Bruce oh
hi Rachel hi Alex is uh not in attendance right now and I'm an i we have a quorum thank you right well if there's anything anything else that uh if
there's anyone in the public who wants to comment I see no attendees and is there are there any other topics that uh folks would would like to cover that were not anticipated believe not we're looking
for a motion to um I move we adjourn second all right motion Rachel with a second Rachel this yeah we Rachel hi Bruce hi Jason
Hi I'm trying to figure out whether I want no yes uh I I'm an i as well thank you thanks folks thanks everybody all right have a good night guys