{"id":478409,"date":"2026-02-19T19:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T19:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/478409\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T19:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T19:16:09","slug":"nantucket-current-nearly-1000-deer-killed-during-record-breaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/478409\/","title":{"rendered":"Nantucket Current | Nearly 1,000 Deer Killed During Record-Breaking\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nJohnCarl McGrady \u2022<\/p>\n

Feb 19, 2026\n<\/p>\n

\"TWIR<\/p>\n

Deer in the Land Bank’s Creeks Preserve property overlooking Nantucket Harbor. Photo by Bill Hoenk<\/p>\n

In the last several years, the state has extended the deer hunting season<\/a> on the island twice<\/a>, created the deer damage permit program, and incentivized deer donation, among other programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope, going into this, was we would combine on the islands for 300 deer, and we combined for 329,\u201d Feehan said.<\/p>\n

Efforts to increase the deer hunt on Nantucket have moved quickly in the last year, with a collection of local organizations including the Land Bank, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, and the ACK Deer Management Project, collaborating to encourage further hunting and create more opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think this is a case of really incredible collaboration between partners,\u201d Feehan said. \u201cThis is kind of the best of government.”<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Deer carcasses inside the Land Bank’s agricultural processing facility on Boynton Lane this winter.<\/p>\n

Feehan also spoke positively of expanded efforts to process deer for the Hunters Share the Harvest program, a state initiative that allows hunters to donate exceed venison to licensed processors, who can then distribute it to people who are food insecure. The Land Bank recently opened<\/a> an agricultural processing center on island, which has processed 59 deer for the program so far. Feehan said that he believes the program could continue to grow in the future.<\/p>\n

Despite the elevated take, the deer harvest is still short of the level needed to significantly reduce the island\u2019s deer population, once births are taken into account.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is certainly the case that this is only the start, and we will have to continue to develop new strategies,\u201d Feehan said.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Youssef Roukhmi showing portions of deer awaiting for final processing at the Land Bank’s new agricultural processing facility on Boynton Lane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JohnCarl McGrady \u2022 Feb 19, 2026 Photo by Charity Grace Mofsen Nantucket is one deer away from its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,27304,451,53906,3,53907,16992,452,453],"class_list":["post-478409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-current-news","tag-headlines","tag-nantucket-current","tag-news","tag-people-of-nantucket","tag-stories","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}