The Deer Population Is Devastating Maui. Hunters Want To Help For decades, axis deer have threatened everything from ranching to watersheds. Hunters can limit the destruction while feeding their families but accessing the land has proven difficult.
AUWAHI, MAUI – The first doe dies before the sun ascends over the hills of southern Maui.
A .45-caliber air rifle fires and, with a thwack of metal on flesh, the deer scampers before hitting the ground behind a tree. The trigger was squeezed by 10-year-old Fisher Betts. It’s his first deer of the day, shot from fewer than 100 yards from where his dad parked their truck.
The suppressed rifle is silent enough to prevent startling more than 200 other deer grazing the hillside, but powerful enough to down the spotted ungulate.
