RABBIT HUNT
Just when you thought it was safe to go walking in the moors again, here comes rabbit season.

Actually, rabbit season runs parallel to the three deer hunting seasons from Nov. 15 through Feb. 29, but it can come as a shock to those who expect to find hunter-free walking trails in January.

On any given day during this season, there are around five or six hunters beating the scrub oak thickets with their dogs - just six are allowed under Nantucket's bylaws - preferably beagles and Portuguese podengos, said Sgt. Dean Belanger, Nantucket Environmental Police Officer from the Massachusetts Division of Law Enforcement.

Belanger said that, typically, rabbit hunters in search of Eastern cottontail rabbits come to Nantucket from places like New Bedford, Fairhaven, Canton and Taunton on weekends each year, joining Nantucket rabbit hunters seeking their fiverabbits per-day limit.

What the rabbit hunters are looking for throughout the three-and-a-half month season are Eastern cottontail rabbits, snowshoe hares and jackrabbits. But, said Belanger, the predominant species on Nantucket is the Eastern cottontail rabbit. Since jack rabbit season runs Nov. 15 through Dec. 31, rabbit hunters are now after just the cottontails and snowshoe hares, and in two weeks, just the cottontails, as snowshoe hare season ends on Feb. 5.

"It's typically cottontails that we're talking about here," said Belanger. "Very rarely will you see a snowshoe hare out here."

Nantucket Land Council Resource Conservationist Emily Molden said the most prevalent rabbit species on the island is the Eastern cottontail, brought to the island as early as the 1880s for hunting and have exploded in numbers since then, as rabbits will do. New England cottontails may also be on Nantucket, but in lower numbers, as Eastern cottontail would probably edge them out, said Molden.

"New England cottontails prefer young forests and thickets and densely forested areas," said Molden. "Eastern cottontails are more adaptive and they can succeed in a broader range of habitat, and, they reach sexual maturity sooner and they can have a longer breeding season."

Regardless of what is reproducing and being shot at out in the moors, the lesson here is fluorescent orange attire never goes out of style.

SUSTAINABLE AT 15 LARGE Nearly three months into the 2007/2008 commercial scallop season, Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto reports that well over 15,000 bushels of scallops have been harvested to date, a far cry from last season's total of 3,850 bushels at the end of the five-month season. There are around 32 boats dredging in Nantucket Harbor and four out in Madaket Harbor with the wholesale price at $11 a pound.

"Guys seem to still be doing well," said Fronzuto last Friday. "The weather is playing a factor and we are in the third month of the season, so guys might not be as aggressive as they were in November and are picking and choosing their days."

After starting out at the beginning of November working the western portions of Nantucket Harbor known as the middle ground, Fronzuto said the fleet is exploring the upper reaches, with some scallopers fishing in Third and Fourth beds, divers scalloping off Pocomo and all scallopers fishing in the lee of the wind when possible. He added that seed

percentages in scallopers' bushel boxes have been extremely low this year, but that he did have to give several fishermen days off for fishing on Jan. 15 when the temperature was below 28 degrees and others for coming back to the docks late.

Because air temperatures 28 degrees and lower kill scallop seed, scallopers are prohibited from fishing when the mercury dips that low. Also, when it is warm enough to scallop, all scallopers must be at the dock by 4:30 p.m.

PADDLE PARADISE When and if the town builds four new playing fields on a 31.3-acre lot owned by the Nantucket Islands Land Bank at 81 Milestone Road, it is likely that three paddle tennis courts will be there before the first soccer ball is kicked.

The Nantucket Platform Tennis Association is going to sign a long-term lease agreement with the Land Bank for one acre of the lot, and will move its three existing paddle tennis courts over from its 1 Polpis Road location. The association will also construct a warming hut and storage shed. Afourth court could be built at a later date. The new facility will be developed at the southern end of 81 Milestone Road along Hinsdale Road with a parking lot for 30 vehicles.

To do this, the Association needs a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals, and although the board did deal with this application at its Jan. 11 meeting, the public hearing was continued to the ZBA's Feb. 8 meeting.

ERRANT VESSEL REGULATIONS Owners of derelict boats could soon be paying a much higher price for ignoring their wayward vessels.

The Harbor Plan Implementation Committee is working on ways to deal with owners whose boats break free of their moorings, sink, wash ashore or are left to decompose on town or private property. The committee is suggesting that mooring permits be revoked for boats that are torn off their moorings and blown ashore and not removed after proper notice by the Harbormaster.

The HPIC is also checking into having the boat owner's mooring permit carry an insurance rider that could pay for the removal and cleanup of the sunken or beached craft. The rider could even be funded by being part of the mooring permit fee. Finally, the committee is exploring the concept of requiring that all mooring permit owners provide year-round addresses and contact information before being issued their annual permits.

The HPIC could push through these suggested changes to the mooring permit bylaw with the help of the Board of Selectmen, which need to sign off on such changes, and with advice from the Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board. The committee meets every second and fourth Thursday at 5 p.m. in the garage at 2

Fairground Road. I