RUMFORD – This year’s hunting season was one of the safest on record, according to preliminary numbers released Thursday by the state.

No hunting fatalities occurred this year and 10 hunters – and a man in a lobster boat – were injured, according to Deborah Turcotte, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. The numbers released Thursday are some of the lowest since statistics were first recorded in 1940.

“This season is a testament to all of the hunters who practiced safe hunting techniques, and to all of the safety coordinators and educators who taught them,” Deputy Commissioner Paul Jacques said in Thursday’s report.

Jacques, who served as a legislator in the 1980s, had pushed for mandatory hunter safety education at that time. The courses were implemented in 1986, after which, the safest years on record occurred.

The safest hunting season was in 1998 when three people were hurt. In 2003 and 2005, five people were hurt.

This year, most of the wounded – four adults and two youngsters – were victims of self-inflicted shots, Turcotte said.

Three hunters each were injured in bird, deer and rabbit seasons, and one each were wounded during duck and squirrel seasons, Turcotte stated in an e-mail Thursday.

“A few were serious, none were life-threatening,” she said of the injuries.

Ten of the 11 were hunters.

One nonhunter, Turcotte said in Thursday’s report, was manning the stern on a lobster boat.

He was hit when a pellet from a gun used by hunters firing at ducks skipped off the water.

However, he didn’t require medical attention, she added.

Deer hunting season ended Dec. 8, but hunting for small game – opossum, skunk, raccoon, gray squirrel, pheasants, partridge and bobwhite quail – ends Monday.

Hunting for bobcats is ongoing until Feb. 14; for fox until Feb. 28; and for snowshoe hare until March 31.