There have been rumblings recently among the more extremist end of the hunting and trapping community regarding the scientifically indefensible practice of coyote snaring, which the state has wisely seen fit to halt.

Snaring is illegal in Maine and has been since the 1930s, when the Legislature also outlawed set guns. Both of these lethal methods of killing animals are non-selective. Twenty years ago, in an attempt to artificially increase the deer population in northern Maine, Inland Fish and Wildlife proposed an exemption for animal damage control that would allow specific, targeted snaring for coyotes. They did this with no science or evidence to justify their actions.

Northern Maine is the upper range of the whitetail deer because of its climate. Many factors must be in place for a healthy, growing population and in northern Maine, because of the loss of good wintering areas, deer populations have a hard time surviving. This area is also where the majority of deer poaching is done in Maine. Money spent on the snaring program would be much better spent working to prevent poaching and encourage the growth of suitable deer yards through habitat restoration.

Those who were trained and licensed to snare were only as good as the snares themselves. The final year of snaring, 2003, when the program was at its most fine-tuned, brought third-party inspections into the process. The inspectors would tell the snarer when they would be going to check their snares. Even with this notice, there was an unfortunate number of lost snares in the woods. The snare used that year had a 50-pound spring attached to hasten the demise of any animal unfortunate enough to be caught, and yet in three of the 10 reported cases where coyotes were snared, inspectors describe “evidence of a prolonged struggle,” with one coyote being described as “surrounded by a 7-foot circle of blood.”

Was it better that this was a coyote than a lynx or bald eagle or a deer? I detest the thought of any animal dying this way and the non-target catch of snares is well documented. In Maine, in the last 12 years we have reports of one lynx and three bald eagles killed in snares. That is what was reported. I shudder to think what has not been reported. So many other foxes, racoons, fisher, bobcat, deer, rabbits and even moose and a river otter were caught as well.

The inspected snares were measured for their height above the ground. The mark of a good coyote snare, they say, is its ability to catch only coyotes. The reports show the inspected snare heights to vary from less than one inch above the ground to as high as 30 inches. I don’t know how this tool would discriminate enough to catch the target animal, especially with any significant snowfall.

The bright spot as far as the inspections go was that there were no animals other than coyotes caught. I have the statistics from the previous six years and this was not the norm, but after all, the inspectors did give prior notification of their intent to inspect.

This minority group in the hunting community seems to be daring our state to defy the recommendations of our own attorney general as well as the federal government. Has the extremist camp that exists among the hunting community grown so bold as to think they are above the law?

The commissioner of IF&W has already instructed employees to continue to try and obtain an incidental take permit regardless of the fact that there is no science or evidence whatsoever that shows that snaring is an answer to the perceived lack of deer in northern Maine.

Our attorney general has stated that the state can be liable not just for fines up to $250,000 but also for NoSnares court costs in the lawsuit, which halted coyote snaring as well. Money is being spent recklessly by the department to try to resurrect this indefensible program.

Hopefully, a bill currently being sponsored by Rep. John Eder of Portland to ban the use of snares in Maine altogether will put this matter to rest once and for all.

This minority group also seems to think that because a small number of ill-informed Maine people agree with coyote snaring then it should be allowed. Once again, we have a small minority with a loud voice trying to govern what happens to the wildlife of Maine that belongs to all Maine citizens.

Coyotes do eat deer occasionally to survive in the winter. This is what nature intended.

These folks talk about delisting the lynx. Maybe we should get rid of the protection for eagles as well so the state can strangle five or six hundred coyotes a year, as well as the many other animals caught and considered some kind of by-catch.

The state agrees that we have always had lynx? Twelve years ago, they said we didn’t have any. They say we have no eastern mountain lion currently and no wolves, although there are legitimate reports of both. We also have a spotty population of golden eagles.

Should we start snaring again with no regard for these species? According to some of these folks, we should. I hope the legislators who govern our wildlife will look at the facts and disagree.

Daryl DeJoy has been a Registered Maine Guide for 16 years. He is the owner of Penobscot Solar Design and serves as the head of the legal committee for the NoSnare Task Force and as director of the Wildlife Alliance of Maine. For more information go to www.nosnare.org or www.wildlifealliancemaine.org.

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