If the state of Maine spends more than 10 minutes defending itself in a suit over locked antlers, it is wasting its time and taxpayer dollars. This is the sort of case in which sticking to the letter of the law defeats common sense and gives government a bad name.

Andrew J. DeRaspe of Carmel was bird hunting with his nephew last month in the woods north of St. Francis Lake in Somerset County when he came upon the carcasses of a pair of moose, antlers forever locked in combat. This was a rare find, and so impressed Mr. DeRaspe that he used a chainsaw to separate the heads from the bodies, and was pleased to show off the unexpected find. Unfortunately for him, he showed it to wardens at the Kokadjo checkpoint, and they seized his discovery.

They seized it based on a valuable law, one that attempts to protect species from unwarranted kills. Each year moose are killed solely for their antlers, which can fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. State law allows people to keep found antlers if they are not attached to skulls. Wardens recognized that Mr. DeRaspe had broken no laws, but took the antlers anyway, due process be damned.

Mr. DeRaspe wants the antlers back and he has filed a four-count civil suit in Somerset Superior Court to get them. Before the state locks horns with Mr. DeRaspe’s lawyer and defends a law in a case where no law was broken, it should try to strike a deal. Offer to let the experts at the Maine State Museum have the antlers long enough to properly preserve and mount them, and, in trade, allow the museum to display them for a couple of months each year for, say, the next several years. This way, the educational concern of the state is served, Mr. DeRaspe gets to keep his antlers and, because this event is so unusual, the poaching law is in no way compromised.

Wardens lose nothing by returning the antlers. They were being careful and interpreted the law in its strictest sense while they tried to figure out what happened. Despite not having found the site of the mortal moose combat, they appear to have concluded that Mr. DeRaspe simply lucked into his find. Let’s leave it at that.