BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 20, 2023
Most Maine coyote hunters behave ethically. But some do not. We’ve heard stories of landowners stumbling across piles of rotting coyote carcasses on their land. Allowing practices like this threatens to alienate landowners and undermine hunters’ access to land in the state. Our amendment to LD 814 would close a loophole that excludes coyotes from ethical hunting practices and provide the state with data about coyote populations so they can be managed more effectively. It will return coyotes to the state’s “wanton waste” list, meaning they would have to be used or disposed of (not necessarily eaten), rather than shot and left. ~ Rep. Sally Cluchey, Bowdoinham, and Rep. Cheryl Golek, Harpswell