NORTH YARMOUTH (AP) – Wardens are investigating an accident that left a bow hunter with a bullet wound to his right arm after he was accidentally shot by a deer hunter.

Donald Leavitt, 49, of New Gloucester, was shot in the woods on Friday shortly after he had killed a deer. Leavitt was shot as he attempted to retrieve the deer he had shot from his tree stand.

Jeremy Judd of the Maine Warden Service said Leavitt had taken off his blaze-orange outfit, and the gun hunters coming by mistook him for a deer.

“Hunters are allowed to take off their orange clothing,” Judd said. “All the laws were followed.”

Leavitt was taken to Maine Medical Center where he was in satisfactory condition Friday evening. Judd declined to identify the hunters, saying wardens are still investigating.

The shooting was the third hunting accident in Maine this season, which began Nov. 1 and ended Saturday.

Adam Cassidy Chase, 15, of Buxton died from a gunshot wound from his own rifle in Danforth on Monday. Officials are still investigating the circumstances.

Earlier this month 21-year-old James Griffin was accidentally shot after sunset in Levant. The accidents have no particular pattern, according to Judd.

“You just never know, we could not have any hunting accidents in Maine for 10 years,” he said. “Maine is one of the safest places to hunt.”

This year’s deaths were the first hunting-related fatalities in Maine in three years. Fifty years ago, hunting was much more dangerous. From 1948 to 1952, for instance, there were between 15 and 19 fatalities each year.

The state has required hunters to wear fluorescent orange since 1973, and hunter safety classes have been mandatory since 1986.