On Dec. 11, there was a small write-up that the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife had received $100,000 from the Pitman and Robertson Act to count deer in Somerset, Piscataquis and York counties.

I can remember back in the early 1960s, the department determined the deer population by counting droppings in the deer yards. What a fallacy it all is.

Maine is the farthest point north of the deer range. It is the cold winters and deep snows that keep the Maine deer population low.

There were 35,000 to 42,000 deer harvested in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. I guess winter conditions were different then.

I suggest that the department gets down to reality and takes care of the real problem — everyday predation by coyotes and, in the spring, by black bears.

Jean R. Arsenault, Mexico