Head of the Harbor village charges two carrying bows and arrows

Head of the Harbor police charged a father and son under a rarely invoked law banning the discharge of weapons in the village after the mayor saw them carrying bows and wearing camouflage in the woods near his house.

A village police officer responding to Mayor Douglas Dahlgard’s Nov. 11 call issued summonses to Darrell Anderson, 55, and Maxwell Anderson, 21, of Lindenhurst, according to records. The officer discovered a “DOA buck” and then the “two subjects lying down attempting to hide” on Suffolk County land behind Harbor Road, the records show.

Authorities also found two tree stands and a trail camera, and during questioning the Andersons admitted shooting a second deer, a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation spokesman said in an email.

Darrell Anderson, a truck mechanic, said in an interview that he and his son had been unaware of the village ordinance and had seen published reports that seemed to suggest hunting was, in fact, permitted in some circumstances in the village. He said they saw no signs forbidding hunting on the county land.

The two men face fines of up to $250 and jail time of up to 15 days under a village ordinance that forbids discharge of any “pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, air gun or bow and arrow” within village boundaries. DEC officers also issued Maxwell Anderson a ticket for failure to carry his hunting license and Darrell Anderson a ticket for failure to tag deer as required.

"We happened to get caught up in something. It wasn't intentional," Darrell Anderson said, adding he planned to pay the fines rather than hiring a lawyer and missing work to go to court. The ticketing officers let him and his son keep the deer, he said. They also intend to keep hunting — just not in Head of the Harbor.  

Trustees of heavily wooded Head of the Harbor passed the no-shooting ordinance in 2000, citing residents' safety.

Village officials said they believe the case is the first instance of someone being charged for using a bow and arrow in the village, although there have been charges for shooting a firearm. “There was someone using a shotgun to hunt geese about 15 years ago, and the other was some guy testing a shotgun in his own property,” Dahlgard said.

Hunters “should be aware of the rules and regulations wherever they go,” he said.

The village, like areas across Long Island, has struggled to address the growing deer population. About 200 deer live in or around the village, with some dying on spiked fences or hit on roadways, Dahlgard said. “There’s an overpopulation, no question, and we have a lot of people complain about the damage they do,” he said.

But village officials who proposed 2015 changes to law to allow hunting dropped the idea after opposition from residents. Instead, the village will rely on an experimental contraception program to start this winter. It calls for researchers from Tufts University and Humane Society of the United States to deliver an immunocontraceptive by dart, under a provision of the no-discharge code that was added last year.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.