Aquinnah, Chilmark and Chappaquiddick are the Island’s deer hotspots, according to the results of a thermal drone survey newly released by Tick Free MV Wednesday.
The young Island nonprofit, which aims to tackle tick-borne illnesses and allergies by confronting the Vineyard’s deer population, partnered with wildlife management company White Buffalo between February 17 and March 9 to study the distribution of deer on Martha’s Vineyard with infrared technology.
By surveying the Island in a grid pattern and capturing the heat signatures of individual deer, researchers located 4,681 deer over a survey area of 87.7 square miles, which translates to a deer density of 53 deer per square mile. According to Mass Audubon, a deer density of below 20 deer per square mile is ideal for the health of Massachusetts forests.
Virginia Barbatti, executive director of Tick Free MV, wrote in the report that the organization deemed it necessary to collect concrete data on deer overpopulation before attempting to take action. The organization sees targeting the deer population as a way to meaningfully decrease the Island’s number of ticks, as deer are the arachnids’ main food source.
“Tick Free MV’s mission is quite clear: we want to reduce tick-borne disease and allergies on Martha’s Vineyard by reducing the number of ticks in the environment, and … it’s a complex challenge,” she told the Gazette Wednesday. “But it’s quite clear, especially when looking at these survey results … that we really need to focus on deer management as a community if we want to resolve tick abundance.”
To assess deer density across the Island, White Buffalo’s drone operators used the cameras on the aircraft to get a closer look at deer on the ground. From the drones’ control panels, operators could see heat signatures of individual deer and entire herds, which showed up like white blobs on a gray background, but could also toggle the camera to see actual color images of deer moving around in real time.
There were several areas of the Island where deer densities far outpaced the Islandwide average. The highest deer density areas were Aquinnah, with 101 deer per square mile, Chilmark, with 85 deer per square mile, and Chappaquiddick, with 62 deer per square mile.
“Survey results revealed that estimated deer population densities on surveyed lands exceed commonly cited thresholds for ecological sustainability,” the written report from White Buffalo reads.
White Buffalo researchers recommended that the Vineyard be surveyed annually for deer density moving forward to discern long-term trends.
“Reliable trend data will enable adaptive management, allowing wildlife managers to adjust harvest quotas, refine habitat enhancements, and make informed decisions that support ecosystem health and sustainability,” the report reads.
The drone survey is one of many initiatives that Tick Free MV has taken to confront the Island’s overpopulation of deer. The group has offered cash incentives to deer hunters, advocated for the state to remove a number of hunting restrictions and helped agricultural land owners secure deer damage permits to hunt deer as pests on their property.
Ms. Barbatti told the Gazette that conversations about how to use the data are still ongoing. She invited the public to an April 30 panel at the Agricultural Hall to discuss the results of the survey with local experts.
“We’re intentionally going about this one step at a time,” she said. “We want to hear from people about what they think when they see this, and we want to have a dialogue about what could come next.”
The survey results are available on Tick Free MV’s website.
This article appears in April 17, 2026.
Excellent data. Hopefully something useful can be done with it. To get to 20 deer/sq mile it would require harvesting close to 3,000 deer. Clearly extending the hunting season to include Sundays is not going to do it. Multiple strategies will need to be employed (including extending hunting season/quotas) to get on top of this issue. No time to waste.
Agreed. This will involve killing deer. Lots and lots of them. Not pleasant, but necessary.
Completely agree. More and more people are getting tickborne diseases, particularly alpha gal, which we now know can be fatal. Depending on volunteer hunters is not going to do the job effectively. What if sharp shooters from the Massachusetts National Guard were deployed to the island over a weekend to harvest the excess and provide professional butchers to process the meat to be distributed to food pantries throughout the state?
To put this to bed, sharp shooters from off island can NOT do any more than they can do on public property, islanders are not bad shots. We had “sharp shooter” come for goose remediation at the Agricultural,Society through a grant at MCAR and we brought these “sharp shooters” to our hunting spots to harvest geese and took them to the boat, nice guided hunt and it cost us 40k dollars, no effect. Now, it’s about access to land so we harvest and manage these deer effectively not wipe them out in a massacre.
To my local hunting colleagues, we need off island hunters, but on our terms. We can make this work, we’re a strong community that can work together, especially when we have a common enemy.
We are processing and donating as many deer as we can and it’s going to food pantries across the state. If anyone wants to talk about it, please contact me or any member of the MV Hunt Club for more information on the hunting aspects.
perhaps an open season period,maybe a month,bow and arrow only,and offer trans and housing to non island mass resident hunters…
The next step should be a mapping of hunting friendly locations within these hotspots. Hard to reduced a hotspot if there is nowhere safe and permitted to hunt… Time to target these hotspots!
What happened to the idea of adding birth control to feeding stations? I’m serious, not wisecracks please.
Susan,
I think this is a great idea to consider in addition to extended hunting. Just read an article from a Tufts Veterinary School expert and seems effective, more so on islands where other deer cannot move in. They do not discuss feeding stations but anti-pregnancy vaccines that are delivered by a CO2 rifle dart. See: https://now.tufts.edu/2026/03/04/too-many-deer-your-area-birth-control-could-help
From White Buffalo’s website: “Surgery is currently the only reliable means to permanently sterilize female deer and has been demonstrated to be safe for the treated animals. Sterilization may provide an alternative deer management technique for reducing suburban herds in communities willing to commit to a long-term effort, and where lethal deer removal is impractical. Surgical sterilization is scale-limited based on the ability to capture and sterilize 80% or more of the female deer in a population and maintain that level each field season.” – This would be wildly expensive and impractical for Martha’s Vineyard.
I have the same question.
Bait Stations and bow hunting will help clear the population numbers. Just clean up the regulations and dates permitted.
It’s interesting to read the VG article from 1940, when the deer population was 30-40 on the whole island! Tom from Boston hit the nail on the head. We need to harvest 1,500+ deer per year just to keep the population from growing. Hunting alone wont get us there.
We should fund a professional cull of the deer population on Chappy and then monitor the impact on tick populations. Given the increased isolation of Chappaquiddick, literally being an island right now, this could allow us to understand impact before broadening across the island as a whole.
Is there a list of land owners that are willing to let hunters on their property? Need to create an easy controlled way to connect hunters with landowner in high density areas
Maybe silly but has there been any research resulting in a contraceptive approach. As shooting many deer would likely require baiting, perhaps that baiting effort could include a contraceptive component….?
Lots of good ideas here and I’m so glad to see people finally taking the tick borne illness epidemic seriously. I think bounties are something we can ramp up quickly and easily. I am a summer resident so I am usually elsewhere during hunting season, but I would happily pay a bounty for island hunters for additional deer (ie over and above last years take) taken in Chilmark.
The town I moved from in CT managed the deer herd each year. After experimenting with birth control, bait boxes and professional culling, the most effective, cost effective and practical was hiring professionals to cull the herd each year. Now that the drone survey is completed the herd should be reduced to a sustainable number ASAP.
I’m not much of an optimist, and fairly lousy capitalist but – aside from the sheer gruesomeness of “harvesting” that many deer – is this not also something of an opportunity, and a renewable resource?
Is there any market for artisanal venison? Lord knows you can make a lot of things out of deer skins, including some rather natty buckskin suits and shirts.
The only real drawback would be the antlers, since there is literally nothing you can make out of them that doesn’t look tacky, and the island could develop a Wisconsin hunting lodge vibe. The inevitable influx of Milwaukee Brewers fans would likely result in civic unrest.
….coyotes?
If I read this drone study correctly, there is the same or a slightly smaller amount of deer on the island now than when the state did a similar count years ago. And yet there is an explosion of tick disease. What do we attribute this to?
How can they possibly know how many deer are on the island. It isn’y exactly like they line up for roll call. The tell us what they want to tell us,deer are constantly on the move to different locations
Did you even read the article? It’s technology.
I think the hunters should just kill them all.
Holy Moly Macaroni, this is absolutely incredible. For Tom, you will be a trivia question if you step into Tarpon Springs.
Open up more land for hunting, whether it’s private land enrolled in a permit-only program or additional public access opportunities. Hunters should also be allowed to hunt on Sundays. That would be a great place to start.
Another issue keeping people out of the woods is the explosion in the tick population. It’s becoming a real concern and is discouraging many people from hunting.
Martha’s Vineyard also has an outstanding venison donation program. If you’re hesitant to harvest more deer than you personally need, I encourage you to look into it. During my 2025 hunting season, the process was incredibly easy. I kept the venison my family needed and donated the rest. The drop-off process was simple, and afterward I received emails from grateful recipients thanking me for the donation. Everyone involved in the program was professional, helpful, and kind.
Circling back to hunting access, organizations such as Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, The Trustees, and The Nature Conservancy should consider opening more of their lands to permit-only hunting, similar to the excellent program already offered by the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank. Expanding responsible hunting access would help manage the deer population while providing more opportunities for ethical hunters to contribute to conservation and local food donation programs.