Enough is enough.

Aroostook County sportsmen, who have grown sick and tired of watching coyotes kill what is left of the declining North Woods deer population as the Maine Department of Fish and Wildlife fiddled away, have stepped to the plate. And in a big way.

Last December, 36 concerned sportsmen attended a meeting to discuss measures that could be taken to save Aroostook County’s endangered whitetail population. From that meeting, an association was born: The Aroostook County Conservation Association, the ACCA. This group is modeled after another association, the Washington County Conservation Association (WCCA), which was formed out of a similar concern for a declining deer herd in eastern Washington County.

According to the ACCA’s new founding president, Jerry McLaughlin, a trapper from New Sweden, his group’s membership has swelled to more than 100 members in just three months. Since its inception, the association has held a number of meetings and listened to state biologists, landowners, and representatives of QDMA, Quality Deer Management Association.

McLaughlin says that his group got some of its fire and determination from years of frustration with lack of preventive action from the Maine Fish and Wildlife Department.

“They have done nothing to help us help ourselves,” says McLaughlin. “The effective way to manage coyotes is to allow us a longer trapping season.”

McLaughlin said that he tried and tried to get the Department to loosen up the trapping season on coyotes, which currently runs from mid October to the end of December. The Department refused, contending that winter coyote trappers might inadvertently trap a lynx.

What has the ACCA done to help save the County’s vanishing deer herd?

With the help of QDMA, the county organization will get aggressive about planting food plots. Remarkably, the ACCA has secured a partnership agreement with some landowners, including Irving Timber. McLaughlin says that Irving has pledged to seed with clover any of its future cutting roads that are closed down. ACCA will share the cost of seed with Irving. ACCA is also working with Maine Public Lands and the small woodlot owners to secure agreements about protecting deer wintering areas.

Borrowing a page from its Washington County counterpart, ACCA, this winter, conducted a highly successful coyote harvest contest. According to McLaughlin, 120 coyote hunting contestants bagged 36 coyotes. First prize was a new Remington Model 700 .22-250 rifle, which was won by Bernie Maples of Portage. The hunter who stacked up the most coyotes won an electronic game call from Extreme Dimensions. The game call went to a hunter who bagged five coyotes.

A few years ago, when Washington County elected to “seize the day” and conduct a coyote hunting contest, the Deputy Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife, purportedly at the urging of Gov. Baldacci, tried to talk the WCCA out of holding the coyote contest. To its credit, WCCA stuck to its guns, said the heck with the admonishments from Augusta officialdom, and got after the coyotes.

According to McLaughlin, to the best of his knowledge, the Aroostook coyote contest received no intervention phone calls this time from the governor, or his appointees in the Fish and Wildlife Department.

Both the WCCA and the new Aroostook group may spell some hope for Maine’s dwindling north woods’ deer population, especially if other statewide fish and game clubs get similarly involved. Gerry Lavigne, Maine’s former state deer biologist, who lost his job because of his straight talk, is encouraging this grass roots activism by Maine sportsmen. He is calling it a Coyote Hunting Network.

The Aroostook County Conservation Association is working hard, not only to help the north woods deer, but to build its organization into a local sportsmen group to be reckoned with. It, along with the WCCA, has just begun to fight. Stay tuned! Memberships are available for $20.00 to any sportsmen who believes in its mission. For more information, contact Jerry McLaughlin at 207 896-3140, or email him at: [email protected].

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].