When 20 caribou were released Sunday into the wild east of Baxter State Park, spokesmen for the Maine Caribou Project said the prognosis for the survival of this tiny herd was better than that of its predecessor. There are few deer and coyote in the area. This could mean a far lower rate of mortality from brainworm and predation, which claimed the lives of 10 of 12 caribou released last spring inside the park.

The 20 caribou, which are expected to produce 10 or 12 calves this spring, have it rough enough in their remote home, even in the absence of brainworms and coyote. It’s a good thing then that they are out of earshot of the debate that continues to hound the Caribou Project.

While project leaders were describing a release that “worked like a dream,” putting the 20 “right at home,” the Humane Society of the United States, which has more than 1,100,000 members, 6,430 in Maine, wrote Gov. John R. McKernan imploring him to stop the program until he could assemble an impartial, blue-ribbon commission to evaluate the reintroduction program.

In some of the most blunt language used in the context of this program by a respected agency, the Humane Society pointed out:

“It would be no exaggeration at all to say that the caribou project, as conducted to date has been nothing short of a disaster…

“Our analysis is that the project has been so thoroughly compromised that no useful progress can be made by simply continuing steadfastly down the road which has already produced such disastrous results.”

The society is of the opinion that the “caribou reintroduction project has been fraught with such errors that it has made a mockery of itself…” Not only are the lives of the animals and their offspring at serious risk, says the Society, but “the concept of reintroduction, as well.”

The Humane Society’s opinion should be heeded by the governor.

This organization is taking two views: one in behalf of suffering animals and the other in the interest of science.

It is painful for the public to watch while these creatures are drugged, transported and loosed in alien terrain where there is excessive exposure to parasites and predators.

It is disheartening for scientists to ponder what the Humane Society terms the potentially disastrous implication this “thoroughly compromised” project has for the “future of reintroduction projects in general.”

The state should recognize that what began with noble intentions — the reintroduction of the extirpated Woodland caribou — has deteriorated into a controversy that threatens not only the credibility of Maine and its wildlife programs, but also the integrity of wildlife science itself.

Although this is a private program, built on donations from people with a sincere interest in the welfare of these animals, the state should exert what influence it has to ensure that the program is not continued beyond the 20-animal herd now reintroduced east of Baxter Park unless there is convincing evidence that the project has a reasonable prospect of success.

The Maine Caribou Project may not be the unmitigated disaster that its critics charge, but it clearly is not the dream that the state’s school children envisioned when they broke into their piggy banks and adopted these strange and wonderful animals.

It was a great notion, this idea to try again to bring caribou to Maine, but it should not be pursued indefinitely at the expense and suffering of these helpless creatures.