EAST MACHIAS (AP) – A competition to see who can kill the most coyotes was under way Friday in eastern Maine, despite protests from a humane group and request by Gov. John Baldacci not to go ahead.

Twenty-three teams turned out as the two-day event got under way amid unseasonably warm temperatures, said Mike Look, an organizer of the derby and member of the Washington County Fish and Wildlife Conservation Club.

Look said he sees little difference between the Maine event and normal hunting of coyotes, which are viewed as a major cause of a deer population decline Down East. “It’s a huge sport nationwide,” Look said. “It’s a chip off the iceberg of what happens every day.”

But opponents say the event does nothing to manage the coyote population and reopens old wounds from a recent bear-hunting referendum.

Organizers offered prizes for the most coyotes killed in different categories, such as calling, baiting and hunting with dogs. Look said he would be surprised if hunters killed as many as a dozen animals.

Days before the event, the Humane Society of the United States sent a letter protesting the event to Gov. John Baldacci asking him to use his influence to call off the event.

“We think that any derby that involves wanton killing of animals is un-called for,” Hillary Twining, New England coordinator of the HSUS, said Friday from the group’s Vermont office. She said the derby is “not sound wildlife management” and “has no place in the Maine hunting tradition.”

Baldacci also finds the practice inhumane, said spokesman Lee Umphrey.

At the governor’s request, Deputy Commissioner Paul Jacques of the state Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department asked the sporting group not to go ahead with its derby, saying it’s not an effective way to control the coyote population. He offered state biologists’ assistance in rebuilding the region’s deer herd.

Organizers decided to go ahead anyway, noting that some participants were coming long distances and it was too late to tell them the event was canceled.

The humane society’s Twining said she’s concerned the derby will renew antagonism between hunting and non-hunting groups barely two months after a statewide referendum to decide whether to ban baiting, hounding and trapping of bears. Maine voters rejected the proposed ban.

And in late 2003, Maine’s coyote snaring program was suspended following appeals to state officials by humane groups and others following emotional testimony to the Legislature.

Look said the derby is to make up in a small part for the snaring program, in which hundreds of coyotes were taken in Washington County. The former teacher said he founded the sponsoring fish and wildlife club specifically to rebuild Washington County’s deer population, which has crashed since the 1970s.

One of the reasons of the decline, Look said, is coyote attacks on fawns.

“Our deer population is zero to two per square mile,” Look said. “If we had a normal deer population, this wouldn’t be happening.”

AP-ES-01-14-05 1626EST

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