Coyotes, tourism and politics today now

A recent citizen task force review of the files of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife produced several findings of interest to those concerned with the state of Maine’s budget crisis and its priorities. The number of letters and emails registering concern about DIF&W’s coyote snaring program since January to Commissioner Lee Perry and to the Governor now exceeds 500, with over 97 percent in opposition to the program.

Many of the letters from outside of Maine make it clear that the writers are actively boycotting Maine as a vacation destination. For a tourist state facing a 20-percent budget shortfall, and a governor actively promoting tourism in the same parts of the state where coyotes are being garroted, such numbers should have caught someone’s attention. Instead, they were just filed away. Many of the Maine writers were hunters, concerned about what this program is doing to the image of their sport.

Given the long history of sportsman solidarity, it seems logical to expect that the department might have decided that the combination of tourism concerns and constituent concerns was too high a price to pay for a program that its own scientists object to.

Dozens of internal memos exposed a huge debate within the department over continuing this program or trying to defend it as a means of protecting the deer herd. One biologist, stated that “there are little or no data to demonstrate that this program is benefiting deer…”; and that he and others have concerns about humane issues, because “it seems apparent … that the majority of animals caught … by our ‘best’ snarers are experiencing prolonged pain and suffering…”; and that “any easing of the policy (of restricting the size of snare closures) will increase the chances of taking other wildlife.”

He also comments that “there seemed to be a reluctance by the snarers to discuss these issues. …” This internal resistance, along with the discovery that the real costs of this program, in terms of staff time, are easily twice as high as the appropriated funds, should have sounded an alarm in most government agencies. For a department facing a major budget shortfall, these findings would invite intense scrutiny in any other state agency.

What this brief citizen review of agency files reveals, is a government program that is 100-percent nonresponsive to science and 97-percent non-responsive to public sentiment. What kind of political influence would drive an agency of state government to promote the slow strangulation of more than 5,000 wild creatures over the past 20 years, including threatened and endangered species such as lynx and eagles, in a scientifically discredited, ethically bankrupt program?

Will LaPage lives in Holden.