The Bangor Daily News recently reported on a coyote snaring seminar held in Down East Maine (BDN, Dec. 20). It said that many people believe the coyote is decimating the deer herd in Maine. It mentioned that the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IFW) is holding more seminars publicizing them better to encourage more snaring. It correctly stated that a new expanded program, not yet approved by the commissioner of IFW, will remove the limit on the number of snares a snarer can use in unorganized territories. And that with permission, snaring will be allowed in organized towns as well.

With a story as well researched as this, I was taken aback when the reporter didn’t mention the “biggest” news of late. What was left out created an incredible imbalance to the story, in favor of snaring.

A spotlight was recently shined on descriptive records kept by state biologists on 94 coyotes that had been snared and brought to IFW for a study to determine if wolf genes are present in the DNA of Maine coyotes. Paid certified snarers provided the carcasses. Although not the purpose of the study, it provided an opportunity to see how well Maine’s best snarers were doing in regard to technique and the humane dispatching of coyotes. An experienced snarer, who knows how to set the lethal wire correctly, allows a coyote to strangle not much longer than 15 minutes. The coyote then dies through suffocation as the snare closes in around its windpipe.

What the data revealed was shocking. Sixty-three percent of the 94 snared coyotes didn’t die a quick, humane death. Instead, to quote from the records, hemorrhaging was evident in most of the coyote’s swollen heads. Their eyes and mouths were bloody, their lips split and their teeth broken from trying to chew their way out of the snare. There were broken limbs resulting from long struggling. And in many cases, because the coyote wasn’t even dead when the snarer returned, it was clubbed to death. (State law requires that snares be tended within three days.)

Again, these snarers are considered Maine’s best. They are the certified ones IFW hires. But, as it turns out, the majority of the coyotes they snared thrashed and suffered for days.

Something else the BDN story didn’t mention was even though Arthur Bousquet, who taught the participants at the Down East seminar, says he’s never caught an eagle or killed a deer in his snares, others have. Eagle stops used to be required on the snares since eagles were, in fact, getting caught in them. But now, because of the recent findings relative to coyotes, IFW has recommended removing the eagle stops so that the wires will close around the coyote’s neck tighter. What about the eagles? And what about lynx who have also been caught? In fact, what about all non-target animals? One summer even a moose was caught in a snare.

Which brings up another point – how many snares are left out in the woods after snaring season because the snarer didn’t bother to retrieve it or forgot where it was placed? There’s not much

of a dollar investment in a piece of wire.

Most people in Maine don’t even know that we have a coyote-snaring program. Inland Fisheries and Wildlife can spend up to $40,000 a year to pay these snarers, yet there have been no public hearings held around the state about the snaring program as is the norm for other IFW programs. Inland Fisheries and Wildlife should start asking questions like, “Does the average Maine citizen feel that coyotes are truly worthless?” and “Are deer worth everything?”

National Wildlife Federation (NWF) supports Maine’s long-standing tradition of hunting and fishing. We are not considered an animal rights organization by any means. But, we cannot support an inhumane method some would call a sport, especially when it’s being used to favor one species over another and simply for the indulgence of human beings. All species in our ecosystem play an important part. Without natural predators to keep prey populations wary and healthy, an unnatural imbalance results.

In addition, NWF can’t defend a wildlife management program that is unsupportable by any scientific study. How, during a time of huge budget deficits, which IFW says it is suffering from, can we spend $40,000 a year to pay snarers? Every scientific study shows that unless you remove 70 percent of a coyote population every year (a virtual impossibility) you can’t succeed with any meaningful reduction. This IFW program doesn’t make sense biologically or economically.

The National Wildlife Federation and others implore Maine citizens to do some exploration of this issue and call your Legislators before an expansion of the program is allowed to take place in the coming year. Call IFW Commissioner Lee Perry. Ask why our state is allowing coyote snaring under the guise of encouraging the growth of an already abundant deer population. Snaring isn’t just allowed in the Down East regions where deer are scarce. It’s allowed everywhere.

Debra Davidson, Maine Project Associate for National Wildlife Federation can be reached at mewolf@megalink.net or 897-6295.