Jeffrey Gurney of Dixfield is one of a growing multitude of Maine sportsmen who have taken up coyote hunting. By doing so, these sportsmen, in turn, are helping Maine’s distressed deer population. Winter is an ideal time to hunt these wily, opportunistic predators who prey on weakened wintering deer.

Gurney hunts coyotes by putting a road-killed critter, or a trapped varmint carcass on the ice of a lake or pond. He then hunkers down in a blind and waits for the coyote to visit the bait site. Gurney, 55, says that he has been “playing the bait & wait game in the Flagstaff lake area for the past 20 years with varying success.” According to Gurney, last winter he and his buddy killed 17 coyotes!

Gurney told me that he is upset about pending state legislation that would, in effect, put him out of business. LD 292, An Act To Prohibit Placing the Carcass of A Dead Animal On A Frozen Body of Water For the Purpose of Baiting Coyotes, is being sponsored by State Rep. Sara Stevens of Bangor. Joining her initiative are eight other lawmakers, all of whom are urban Democrats, save one, Rep. Rosen of Bucksport.

“What are these people thinking?” asks Gurney. He adds, “Baiting coyotes on frozen water is a good method for reducing numbers ( of coyotes) as our Maine terrain doesn’t lend itself to other open shooting opportunities.”

What are these people thinking? I asked them. One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Adam Goode of Bangor, whose occupation is listed as an Environmental Organizer, indicated that he was on board mostly as a favor to his friend Rep. Stevens. He sounds like a well-meaning but naive young man. When pressed, he admitted having no knowledge of deer or coyotes.” I don’t know anything about sports people issues,” said Goode.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Stevens, said that her bill was submitted at the request of a constituent. “Paul,” she told me on the phone, “this is a water purity issue. In so many words, she indicated that lake residents don’t want their lakes polluted by dead animal carcasses. She explained that last year an amendment was passed without a hearing that removed an earlier prohibition of lake baiting of coyotes. “It’s a matter of competing interests. I just want a fair hearing of the issue,” she said.

It was clear from my talk with Rep. Stevens that, when it comes to deer, coyotes and nature’s way, she is no better informed that Rep. Goode. She insists that this is not an anti-hunting bill in disguise, nor is she out to stop cotoye hunting. Her secondary concern shared by some of her lakeside constituents, is that a coyote hunter will shoot someone’s domestic dog by mistake.

What is most disappointing of all, but not novel, is that Rep. Stevens, despite her polite demeanor, had little interest in or natural curiosity about the other side of this “competing interests” issue. She did not know that Maine’s deer population is in crisis. She did not know that coyotes are ravaging our deer. She really could care less that scavengers take care of animal carcasses in short order. She didn’t know whether a coyote hunter had ever shot someone’s dog by mistake?

The Dixfield coyote hunter is right. This is an “absurd” piece of legislation.

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The author 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, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].