The East Hampton Town Board is expected to pass a resolution at its meeting Thursday regarding an additional turkey hunting season, which would span May 1 to May 25 this year.
The board's meeting, at 2 p.m., will be preceded by a protest at 1 led by the East Hampton Group for Wildlife in front of Town Hall.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the group had 741 signatures on a petition at change.org asking the town board to opt out of the hunt, which the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced last year.
The East Hampton Sportsmen's Alliance, members of which have spoken in favor of the May hunt, previously presented a petition asking that the board not opt out of it. Terry O'Riordan, the alliance's president, told the board last month that it had collected the signatures of more than 300 residents.
The new turkey hunting season could span the month of May with hunting permitted from a half-hour before dawn until noon and a limit of one male turkey per hunter. It would be in addition to an existing youth hunt that this year will take place on April 22 and 23, and a fall hunting season that this year will span Nov. 19 through Dec. 2.
The town could opt out of the new hunting season, but the board previously indicated that it would prohibit turkey hunting only from the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend through the weekend, from May 25 to 29 this year.
Residents in favor of and opposing the hunt addressed the board last month, those in favor decrying a loss of rights and traditions, the opponents calling for compassion for animals and criticizing what they say is a danger to hikers and others who are outdoors during the spring, when the town's population begins to swell.
On Tuesday, four more residents spoke in favor of a spring hunt, with one reading an additional statement from Mr. O'Riordan.
The petition opposing the spring turkey hunt is "another demonstration of, we're being attacked by outsiders," said Rob Stanich. "Are ducks next? Are ducks sentient? Is it going to be fish, that we can't fish anymore? They will stop at nothing," he said of opponents of hunting. "And they plan to show the level of disrespect they have for you and for me by staging a protest here."
Bill O'Leary, vice president of the Sportsmen's Alliance, pointed to cruelty to animals, experimentation, and "massive factory farming" as appropriate targets for activism, rather than local hunters who consume what they kill. "Ten billion animals, including 45 million turkeys, are slaughtered in factory farms in this country alone every year," he said. A turkey killed by a town resident should be seen as "one less ring of the cash register for a factory farm" and "importantly, a measure of respect for fellow community members who have stood up here and told you multiple times . . . how important it is and how they, our fellow citizens, value this part of local culture."
