Since Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Danny Martin ordered the suspension of coyote snaring in deer yards by professional trappers more than six years ago, our state’s coyotes have killed deer with impunity. And, as our dwindling deer numbers keep declining Downeast and in Northern Maine, the coyote-control issue remains bogged down in political mire and a sea of semantics.

During this hiatus on coyote control, most Maine wildlife biologists have been ambivalent about the issue. Many have argued that you can’t really regulate coyote populations. They cite failed attempts at coyote eradication in the West. The most common refrain from our state’s professional wildlife managers is that there are just too many variables when it comes to measuring cause and effects of deer mortality.

IF&W’s animal damage control officer Henry Hilton said, “the Department must find a middle ground between those who want no coyotes trapped or snared, and those who would like coyotes wiped out of Maine.”

The question as to what is the biggest culprit in the decimation of our deer numbers remains elusive: 1. Is winter kill taking our deer in Northern Maine? 2. Are irresponsible logging practices compromising our forage base and deer wintering areas? 3. Are coyotes and bears killing young deer?

Long before the suspension of coyote control programs in Maine, and before it became a source of sportsmen’s disappointment, most wildlife biologists were telling us that coyotes were simply natural predators that represented a small and difficult-to-measure part of the deer-predation equation. There was one voice in the wilderness, though.

Former state deer biologist Gerry Lavigne persisted in his view, based on his studies, that coyotes kill a lot of fawn deer. Lavigne wrote, “Research in Maine … has demonstrated that coyotes and bears remove a substantial proportion of the fawn crop.”

Lavigne’s view, which is that coyotes are raising havoc with fawn recruitment, has been corroborated by a recent study, which was published by Field and Stream magazine. The study is specifically on deer fawn mortality and conducted by wildlife biologist John Kilgo of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a national forest in South Carolina. After telemetry tracking of newborn fawns, Kilgo found that 60 percent were killed by coyotes within the first eight weeks after birth.

Here are some excerpts from the study:

“The risk of predation is greatest in the first month of a fawn’s life. By about 6 weeks of age, they seem generally able to evade predators, and no fawns have been killed by predators after 10 weeks. Genetic analysis has revealed that many different coyotes kill fawns, with only two individual coyotes being responsible for more than one kill.”

The report goes on to say, “Population models show that this level of mortality is more than sufficient to explain the decline that has been seen in the SRS deer population.”

The Field and Stream article also cited a study of fawn mortality: “Although there is some disagreement among biologists as to whether coyote control can be effective, a recent University of Georgia study conducted in northeastern Alabama documented higher fawn to doe ratios (indicating increased fawn survival) following an intensive predator removal program. However, coyote control can be very expensive and time consuming, and it generally requires the efforts of an experienced trapper; occasional shooting will have little to no effect.”

When it comes to the Maine debate about the impact of coyotes on our deer herd, the studies above have particular relevance. For us, there are always too many variables to be sure. Our state biologists, and their more political-inclined bosses in Augusta, could always say, “Sure, coyotes kill a few deer, but so do severe winters (stress) and loss of habitat (deer wintering areas).” The Kilgo study removes the Maine variables and puts the coyote vs. deer dynamic out in the clear for all to see – coyotes kill fawns, lots of them. Period. End of debate.

Thus, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to conclude that coyotes killing fawns with impunity leads to lower deer numbers. Much lower deer numbers.

Unfortunately, Maine sportsmen, who feel abandoned by IF&W and by many state politicians on the coyote control issue, seem to be adopting an “adaptive rationale.” More and more, the conventional wisdom is that sportsmen can, by themselves, control coyote predation on deer by recreational hunts of coyotes. A challenging hunt and a laudable sentiment, but an approach that, according to the above studies, is not likely to make much of a dent in Maine’s robust coyote population.

Until Maine gets back to a systematic program of coyote snaring in deer yards by professional trappers, we are not likely to see improved fawn recruitment and recovering deer numbers in Eastern and Northern Maine.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].