BANGOR – Local activists opposed to the state’s coyote snaring program announced their intent Wednesday to file suit against the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

They are claiming state policy violates the federal Endangered Species Act by placing such species as Canada lynx and bald eagles at risk of being snared.

About a half-dozen members of the NoSnare Task Force gathered in front of Bangor District Court Wednesday to announce they will sue unless DIF&W Commissioner Lee Perry moves to eliminate the coyote control program and ban all use of wire neck snares within the next 60 days.

“Snaring just isn’t a selective tool,” said Daryl DeJoy of Penobscot, a spokesman for the group.

A lengthy letter written by the group’s Portland-based attorney, Bruce Merrill, outlines NoSnare’s case – essentially, a claim that snares should be banned because they have been known to kill endangered and threatened species. If they proceed to court, the group will seek a permanent injunction on the use of wire neck snares in Maine.

A snare is a type of simple trap that uses a wire loop to strangle an animal to death.

A department spokesman declined comment Wednesday, deferring to the Attorney General’s Office, which will be conducting the state’s defense.

The state has received the notice of intent to sue and is evaluating the case in consultation with DIF&W, said Jeff Pidot, the natural resources specialist at the Attorney General’s Office.

A spokeswoman from the Natural Resources Defense Council said Wednesday that her organization knew of only a single case, related to fishing gear, which used the Endangered Species Act in a similar way.

Under current Maine law, snares are allowed only for trapping beavers in the winter and for the state-funded coyote control program. Last year, about 50 snarers were paid to kill more than 500 of the predators in Maine’s unorganized territories in hopes of protecting deer herds.

State wildlife officials defend the 17-year-old program, citing anecdotal evidence that coyote snaring is effective in boosting some regional deer populations in far northern and eastern Maine.

Critics point to the frequent killing of non-target animals as a reason to ban snaring. Last season, 36 animals, primarily deer, bobcats and foxes, were reported killed by snares set for coyotes.

DIF&W documents also indicate that two endangered bald eagles were killed by snares in 1989, and in 1993 a threatened Canada lynx died as a result of a snare.

NoSnare members also believe that a third dead eagle found this summer was snared. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet conclusively determined what killed the eagle.

DeJoy said he believes the actual bycatch figures could be much higher. Snarers know that every non-target death harms their program’s reputation, so they have an incentive not to report it to the state if they catch an eagle or a lynx, he said.

In December, U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists Mark McCollough and Gordon Russell sent DIF&W a memo suggesting that the snaring program be changed to better protect lynx.

Bobcats, lynx and wolves, if they were to migrate into Maine, are extremely difficult to protect from the snares set for coyotes because of behaviors shared by the similarly sized predators, they said.

The biologists recommended that snares not be used at all in areas that have been identified as lynx home ranges.

DIF&W has adjusted its snaring rules to reduce bycatch in the past. For instance, a device known as a stop, which keeps a snare from contracting below a certain size, was required from 1989 until this fall when snaring rules shifted to weighted killing traps, thought to be more humane.

The snaring debate has reached fever pitch in recent years, beginning in November 2001, when data from a DIF&W study of snared coyote carcasses suggested that animals caught in snares often suffered a slow, agonizing death.

In response, the NoSnare Task force was founded last summer. Its dozen or so core members also are advocating a bill introduced to the Legislature that would ban snares.

Last week’s announcement that DIF&W will likely shut down all animal damage control programs in an effort to reduce the department budget is of no consequence, DeJoy said.

Even if the proposed budget cuts are approved, the legislation creating the coyote control program will remain, and volunteer snarers may legally be able to continue their efforts, he said.