Maine’s War on Coyotes

On the other hand, the department acquiesced to George Smith, director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, who had written Perry as follows: "The [snaring] limits are apparently proposed to appease federal officials and radical environmental groups now that the Canadian [sic] lynx has been listed. . . . We cannot support a policy that puts lynx ahead of deer in the north woods. . . . Our suspicions that DIF&W is not really committed to this program are only enhanced by this most recent decision [now revoked] to stop protecting deer in one of the largest and most important deeryards in the entire north woods."

The department's report to the legislature in response to the resolution listed 25 concerns of the ad hoc study group, followed by detailed explanations from the department. Concern No. 11 was "lack of support for snaring throughout MDIFW." But in the draft report the department declined to provide a single reason for this lack. When Hulsey suggested to his bureau director that the public deserved an explanation, he was told to write one. He complied, with a five-page memo that spared no detail. But the final report contained not a word of that explanation or of any other.

Whenever the public expresses concern about the threat to lynx, the department responds that no snarer has reported killing a lynx since the species was listed. Of course no snarer has reported killing a lynx. Such a confession could elicit prosecution under the Endangered Species Act. "We've had open discussions about the dangers of coyote snaring in lynx areas," says Paul Nickerson, chief of threatened and endangered species for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's northeast region. "So if a lynx is taken, no one can just say, 'Oops.' "

The official word from the department—repeatedly contradicted by internal correspondence from its own biologists—is that the coyote-snaring program is legitimate animal-damage control, not paid recreation. But animal-damage control is, as the name implies, a response to animal damage. You don't do it in advance. The department doesn't go around knocking off bears because they might one day tip over a beehive; it doesn't eradicate beavers in spring because they might flood someone's cellar the following winter.

However, the days when Maine wildlife could be managed by politicians like Howard Chick and radical special-interest groups like the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and the Maine Trappers Association appear to be drawing to a close. For one thing, the Nosnare Task Force has alerted the public to the cruelty and stupidity of coyote control. Of recent comments received by the department from Maine residents, 7 supported coyote snaring, 4 were undecided, and 77 were opposed. Because the department is funded almost exclusively by hunters, fishermen, and trappers, it hasn't had to pay a lot of attention to anyone else. But that's changing, too. Next year 18 percent of its budget will come from the general fund, and with public funding comes public representation.

It is not clear how much of a threat eastern-coyote "control" is to nontarget species. It is abundantly clear that it is no threat whatsoever to the eastern coyote. Maybe what it threatens most is the reputation of legitimate, ethical sportsmen who already are getting kicked around by the animal-rights crowd. As Mark McCullough, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's endangered-species leader, has advised his supervisor: "All it will take will be one animal-rights advocate to videotape a 'jellyhead' in a snare and your program will be over, and maybe even take recreational trapping with it."

Moving into Maine with the coyotes themselves is the image of the western coyote controller, eloquently captured by Tom Rush. You wouldn't have heard "A Cowboy's Paean to a Coyote" (a paean, pronounced "pee-in," is a song of joyful praise or exultation). Rush wrote it when he lived in Wyoming, to commemorate a three-day coyote shoot in which several hundred participants came up with a total of two coyotes, one with tire tracks on it. Herewith, a few verses:

Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes, / Makes a man feel good, Lord, it makes a man feel proud! / Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes, / One for Mother, one for Country, one for God. / Well, if you're having trouble with the truck, or with the woman, / Maybe them kids are screwin' up in school. / If the cows are actin' smarter than the cowboy, / You gotta show the world you ain't nobody's fool. / I got my field rations straight from old Jack Daniel's, / Hank, Jr.'s on the eight-track in my four-by-four. / And I'd shoot a thousand coyotes if I could only just find one, / 'Cause, boys, that's what God made coyotes for.

Maine coyote control wastes something much more valuable than time, money, or even the sportsman's image. It wastes the credibility, effectiveness, and morale of an otherwise enlightened agency that is doing superb work restoring native ecosystems.

This year the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has an $8 million deficit, and Governor Angus King, who appears oblivious to the bad image coyote control is giving his state, has asked it to come up with ways of cutting back on expenditures. Under the liberalized snaring regulations, the costs of administering the coyote-control program have about tripled, at least according to one internal estimate. The governor needs to pay more attention to the people who truly know, the people who make the recommendations that get ignored by the decision makers, the people the public doesn't hear from except when someone rifles through dusty file cabinets—Maine's wildlife biologists. For the first budget cut, every one of them would have the same recommendation.