Good evening everyone and thanks for braving the winter storm to be online with us this evening. I will be going through each one of the proposed regulations briefly as a review summary of the regulations themselves. As a reminder for this hearing, these are regulations that we were passed underneath an emergency order in September and are currently active. And if these are approved following this process then they will be made permanent. So the first portion of this will be focused on an extension to the winter season which includes a two extension of a primitive season for zones 13 and 14 being Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The second portion includes a 10-day early season in September for the islands. Once again with primitive and archery equipment and this will also lead be the portion of the season running up to the beginning of the Youth Deer Hunt. Includes the removal of the on island deer check requirements as well as removing the requirement that deer be visible during transport which is a statewide regulation. Reviewing the population trends for the islands and why these are important from a management perspective. Zones 13 and 14 which make up Martha's Vineyard, the Elizabeth Islands as well as Nantucket and Tuckernuck have our highest deer densities in the state. All of our estimates are always based on hunter harvest data. And so the the density estimates are effectively minimums based on the areas that are open to hunting. Our density estimates are essentially those minimums with the areas that are closed to hunting likely having much higher deer densities. As you can see from this graph, Zones 13 and 14 are well above the statewide goal density range shown in the blue box below where our goal is 12 to 18 deer per square mile. With Zones 13 now having deer densities within the 50 plus deer per square mile range, well above our goal. And then Zones 14 with Nantucket now exceeding 70 deer per square mile. Again, these are the estimates in areas open to hunting and even higher in those areas closed to hunting. The islands with these high deer densities are facing significant impacts requiring management. They both are facing impacts on their coastal vegetation which is a unique aspect that we don't have to deal with on the mainland. This includes the vegetation itself as well as physical damage to the dunes through deer trails and bedding sites. And those coastal vegetation and the areas around them are critical for being able to stabilize the sands. And effectively the deer are having an additive impact on climate change to these areas that are really critical for stabilizing the sands and minimizing coastal erosion for the islands. They also are having an impact particularly on Martha's Vineyard with the salt marshes due to the impacts on hydrology from the daily tides with the deer trails themselves compacting those marshes and reducing the ability for the natural ecosystem to be able to absorb both storms as well as the daily tides that come throughout the year. They have impacts directly on agriculture particularly on Martha's Vineyard where there are more farms that have not yet been fenced and so it has a direct impact on the food system locally. And then lastly, a major driver for the interest in management is with tick-borne diseases which have significant impacts on both islands. Particularly now on Martha's Vineyard with the rise of lone star ticks.
Through the first run of the emergency regulations, we had the winter deer season which began on January 1st that ran through January 31st and then the emergency portion that then extended that to February 14th. It was a very successful first go of the season. Going into this, we weren't quite sure how high the harvest would be and frankly exceeded our goals. Going through the fall season we sort of have hit a plateauing impact at this point which you can see in the graphs where the harvest has not been growing much even though we really need that from a management standpoint. And so this through the end of December, the Nantucket season was the third highest on record and the Martha's Vineyard was ninth highest on record. With the very successful winter deer season where 158 Nantucket deer were taken and 171 on Martha's Vineyard. This really helped grow the harvest to new to reach new highs, including a brand new record on Nantucket of a total season harvest of 999 deer and 934 total at Martha's Vineyard, which then makes it the second highest season on record only behind the 2018 season.
Beyond these island focused regulation changes that first would include the extension to February 14th, the 10-day season in September and the removal of the on island deer check requirement, we also have an additional regulation that was part of the emergency package that include removing visibility requirement for harvested deer statewide. This is important to allow hunters to be able to harvest deer in areas where people may not be as regularly exposed to hunting. And also being able to make it just easier for hunters to transport their deer throughout the state without concerns about visibility for law enforcement