These two bills could change how Mainers hunt

By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff

Two controversial hunting bills were considered by the Legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee in public hearings on Monday, March 3.

One would restrict coyote hunting to six months instead of open season year round. How it would affect night hunting is unclear. The other would allow youth hunters to hunt on Sundays.

Bills have been presented before to restrict coyote hunting and it is a hot button topic between hunters and nonhunters. There also have been several bills over the years seeking to allow Sunday hunting in general and for only youths. These two bills are the latest attempts to make changes in those laws.

Sunday hunting proposals pit hunters who say they have to work during the week and can only hunt on Saturdays against non-hunters who say they want to hike in the woods without fear one day a week.

Deer and turkey hunters, as well as farmers, have long despised coyote interference. Some rod and gun clubs around the state hold private coyote contests during the legal season to keep the numbers down, especially near known winter deer yards. Other groups try to manage coyote predation on the deer herds.

For example, the Aroostook County Conservation Association has a coyote control management program in which people trap or hunt the animals to reduce predation on the county’s struggling deer herd. In 2022-23, 150 coyotes were registered in the program. This year’s program ends on March 9.

Under current law, there is no closed season on coyotes for daytime hunting. Night hunting is restricted to Dec. 16, 2024, through Aug. 30, 2025, this season. There is no limit on the number of animals that can be killed, either day or night.

LD 716, An Act to Restrict the Hunting of Coyotes sponsored by Rep. Nina Milliken, D-Blue Hill, would change all coyote hunting to a single six-month season of Oct. 1-March 31, and impose a $500 fine and mandatory one-year license revocation for violations. The fine is an increase from a minimum of $50. 

The bill takes out references to night hunting except that it allows the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife commissioner to appoint agents to use artificial light to hunt coyotes at night from Sept. 1 to Dec. 15 in certain circumstances.

This bill is similar to LD814, presented by Rep. Lynne Williams, D-Bar Harbor, during the 131st Legislature in 2023. The IF&W committee voted that that bill ought not to pass and it died.

A notice by Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and posted to the Facebook page Maine Deer Hunters on Feb. 28 said the proposed law “will take away our ability to strike a balance between predation and sustainable wildlife populations.”

It also said coyotes hunt and kill most aggressively in the months they could not be hunted under this bill, and it would put deer fawns, cats, dogs and other domestic animals in increased jeopardy because it will allow coyotes to proliferate.

One neighborhood in Bangor already deals with them.

Other hunters on Maine Deer Hunters encouraged people to weigh-in during the public hearing, including sharing stories that illustrate the need to leave the hunting season as it is. Matt Fournier posted a tutorial by The Maine Sporting Dog Association on how to give your testimony online. 

DIF&W opposed LD814 two years ago. 

The department does not state its position on active bills until the public hearings, out of courtesy to the legislator, according to Mark Latti, communications director for DIF&W.

Rep. Milliken could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Another bill reopens the Sunday hunting debate.

LD439, An Act to Preserve Maine’s Sporting Heritage and Enhance Sporting Opportunities for Maine’s Youth by Allowing Maine’s Youth to Hunt on Sunday sponsored by Rep. Donald Ardell, R-Monticello, would allow youth with a valid junior hunting license or someone who is 18 years old and enrolled in secondary school who holds a valid hunting license to hunt on Sunday.

A bill two years ago experimentally expanded youth deer hunting to two days from one. Last year, the Legislature made the two-day youth hunt permanent. LD439 would allow youth to hunt all wild game — animals and birds — on Sundays during the appropriate season for each species.

Other attempts to allow hunting on Sundays have failed in the Legislature.

The new bill also modifies the part of the law that describes who can lawfully carry hunting equipment and how on Sundays if youth hunting is allowed.