HEBRON — A 34-year-old woman was shot and killed Saturday by a hunter on the first day of deer hunting season in a heavily wooded area about 250 yards from Greenwood Mountain Road.

The woman, believed to from the area, was pronounced dead at the scene, Maine Warden Service spokesman John MacDonald said.

He said the shooting occurred around 10 a.m.

Authorities have identified the shooter as a 38-year-old man who was a member of a small hunting party that included at least one other person. He was being interviewed by the Maine Warden Service.

MacDonald said wardens are unclear whether the woman had been hunting, or was in the woods for another reason.

“It looks as if she was alone, and we don’t have any other witnesses on her behalf, so that’s what’s making it a little more difficult,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald did not immediately release the names of the woman or the hunter who shot her. He said more information would be released Sunday.

Officers from the warden service, Oxford County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police responded, and MacDonald said the wardens will remain at the scene through most of the weekend, until forensic mapping is complete.

The number of hunting deaths has plummeted over the past 30 years due to mandatory hunter education courses and the requirement for hunters to wear blaze orange. But fatalities still occur. In 2012, two deer hunters in Wales fired at the same deer, and one of them, Gerard Parent, 49, was hit in the throat and died.

In 2011, William Briggs, 61, of Windham shot Peter Kolofsky, 46, in Sebago early in the hunting season. Briggs was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison, with all but 45 days suspended.

Last year there were four hunting-related firearm injuries in Maine, three of which were self-inflicted, according to the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.

emarquis@sunmediagroup.net

A woman was shot and killed in a hunting incident off Greenwood Mountain Road in Hebron on Saturday morning. (Liz Marquis/Sun Journal)