Animal Rights Groups And Governor Oppose Maine’s Coyote Hunts
December 31, 2009
Right on schedule, animal rights groups, environmentalists and anti-hunting groups are lining up in opposition to coyote hunting in Maine and more specifically the current coyote tournament sponsored by the Jackman-Moose River Chamber of Commerce. 6 hunters have enrolled and have killed one coyote since it began Dec. 16.
But what’s really at stake here is a test to witness the resolve and priorities of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife under the direction of Gov. Baldacci. According to the Maine Public Broadcasting Network website, Baldacci opposes the hunts too.
David Farmer is a spokesman for the governor. “The governor doesn’t support this kind of tournament — he finds the practice inhumane,” Farmer says. “He has spoken with his Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and asked that he reach out to the group that is sponsoring the event and see if they would be willing or interested in calling it off.”
I find it amazing that Maine’s governor doesn’t have at the least an understanding of what his state is facing concerning the destruction of its whitetail deer herd. To me this is a clear indication of why Maine’s deer herd has been decimated. He and MDIFW are ultimately responsible for this demise. They have failed and are offering little in the way of solutions, yet oppose efforts by locals to save their economies and deer herds.
Should the governor and MDIFW Commissioner Martin buckle to the whims of hypocritical and extremist environmental groups on this issue, then outdoor sportsmen in Maine have their answer as to why Maine will never see a return of deer to certain parts of the state.
It is hypocritical that these groups oppose the taking of coyotes in order to balance out the predator/prey ratios to protect deer. Why aren’t these misguided groups interested in protecting other species? Simple answer. They’re not. They are interested in stopping hunting.
So, Mr. Governor and Mr. Martin. It appears the ball is now in your court. What do you intend to do with it? Show us your true colors. Are you interested in protecting the deer and preserving Maine’s deer herd and deer hunting heritage? Or, are you scared of bad publicity that will be generated from a group of extremists that are mostly laughed at by Maine residents.
Your call.
Tom Remington
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Hunting in Texas is worth $2.2 billion (not million) annually in economic revenue according to a recent publication of the state comptroller. What’s the point? The point is that regulated hunting is essential to a healthy ecosystem. It keeps dangerous animals such as wolves, bears and coyotes properly afraid of even the tiniest of school age children trying to walk or ride their bicycles to and from school in rural areas; it preserves lesser species that would be hunted to extinction by wanton predation of merciless killing animals; it preserves the predators by making sure the predators don’t get so numerous they run out of food and it pays big bucks in revenues for gov’t game departments to fund contiuned proper, sustainable management.
Read Robert Cupp’s SMU law review article 2007 “Dubious Grail:…”
Humans have an obligation to treat animals humanely, but animals should not have rights. A game department that stays confused on this subject will never be able to conceptually sort out when or when does not an animal have a right to be where it is even if that consitutes a threat to human life.
We must admit to ourselves that the ethical milieu of animal rights is nonsense soup. The secular philosphy animal rights/cruelty is retrogressive, psuedo-intellectualism.
Humans must take care of humans first, then the lesser species, then the horrible predators last and keep their numbers low enough that the economy of hunting continues to pay for the proper mangement of wildlife. If not, why pay for government game management, especially when there is none in allowing mindless killing animals to kill at will anything and everything, all year long, day and night, human and not human. For those who cannot eat a sentient being, do what the rest of us do: give thanks at meal time for the sacrifices that all animals make to make our lives so much better and richer. The emotionally mature among us have been doing this for two million years.
If you’ve ever fished with a worm, you know it is a sentient being with a conscious desire to live and is intelligent and capable of learning. If it were not meant for humans to eat animals, animals would not eat humans, and animals would not eat other animals.
The Governor supported the bear hunting fight several years ago, then turned around and denounced a coyote hunting turnament taking place douwn east. Now this!
I’m sure Commissioner Martin will buckle under on this, just like he has done many times in the past. In the mean time, deer numbers are getting fewer, and fewer, further and further south every year.
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To quote John Mellancamp, “When I was a young boy, I had young boy ways”. I am a lifelong gun owner/collector, NRA member and FORMER hunter. I own 160 acres in West Texas (a miniscule holding by West Texas standards) primarily populated by mule deer, feral hogs, coyotes and rattlesnakes, along with my small herd of Texas longhorns. I have never lost a calf to a coyote and doubt I ever will. As most folks know, coyotes subsist on rabbits and other rodents. The only things I shoot on my place these days are made of clay or paper. I cannot abide shooting coyotes even though I once did “back in my young boy days”. To those that do, “that too shall pass” I would hope. Get over it and grow up!
Ed Hueske on January 20th, 2010 9:32 pm
Thanks for that post from a different part of the US and a land owner’s perspective regarding native coyote predators. I Hope your longhorns are doing well.
Ed Hueske, you state that you are a FORMER hunter, and if you were, I can imagine you were not much of one ….If you WERE a good hunter, you would know and see the advantages of hunting, but by classifying hunting as an immature sport, it simply f reflects your lack of understanding, and inability to recognize virtues you have dismissed because of your own shortsightedness.
Most of the time I doubt whether or not the people who CLAIM to have been, or CLAIM to be a hunter, actually are, or have been…..simply because almost everyone ot the rabid anti-hunters that write on the hunting websites are simply trying to dissuade others from doing what they have never appreciated or understood. And they misrepresent themselves in order to gain a foothold….chances are, you will not return, because if you do, you will expose yourself for what you are….another one of the ANTIS…..
If you nave had cattle for any length of time, in a country of coyotes, you will suffer losses, unless you keep your cattle contained in tight hogwire fences, and check constantly for dig-unders, where they can get in…and have no trees to fall on the wire in a storm….So, if that is the case, you might get by for awhile, without coyotes killing your calves, but even so, not for long….
Chances are, you’re just another hooey….so take your inaccurate and unsubstantiated advise, and go back to your New York diner…..
Either that or his neighbors are doing his share of the predator control which he benefits from..