Snared coyotes

[Albert Ladd 0]

The first guide Walker quides in Quebec in the spring. Last fall he was telling me that he had seen 30+ bear just while traveling putting out bait. So this should be a positive hunt. Walker is a great guy. Caught one of his hounds in a coyote snare once. Made no trouble about it at all.

Yenca is the outfitter that will work hard to get you a bear. Only met him over the web. Friends trapped coyote in his area last fall. He helped them out by telling them where the coyotes were hitting his baits. And this was after the trappers had caught his black lab

Frank Walker Walker Guide Service

2675 Middle Rd

Sidney ME 04330

207-547-3561,

mail@walkersguideservice.com

http://www.walkersguideservice.com

 

 

 

Michael Yencha Loon Lodge

PO Box 404

Millinocket ME 04462

207-745-8168,

relax@loonlodgemaine.com

 

Licenses: Hunting/Fishing Guide

Description: Located in the remote Allagash Lake Region. Log lodge and cabins specializing in fishing, family vacations, nature tours, canoe trips & hunting.

 

And look. Family vacations. You can even take the wife along!

[mackem 25,350]

Thanks a bundle for the info Hornhunter,will definately check them up,as for the wife going she prefers Thailand,cheap clothes and plenty of

[PBurns 9]

Nice snaring Hornhunter! Quite an impressive haul!

 

In the U.S., all hunting laws vary from state to state (and sometimes even within states). In Virginia, where I live, for example, they have a bounty on coyote -- it was put it in 3 or 4 years ago. Maryland has no bounty, but has open season. Every state is different.

 

Across the U.S. we shoot and trap about 500,000 coyote a year, and yet the population numbers keep going up as they spread East. They are still not very dense, in terms of numbers, across most of the East south of NY, but the numbers are risising very rapidly and they are a serious problem where sheep and goat are kept, and they can be a problem for cats and small dogs left unattended in rural areas.

 

 

 

This Coyote was caught in Central Park, New York City, just yesterday. A rare thing as Manhattan is an island. This coyote -- and the last NYC coyote caught in 1999 -- crossed over from the Bronx via a railroad bridge. There are a lot of coyote in NY state!

 

 

In Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, where we have more open ground than they do in Maine, our mounted hunts catch some coyote and kill all they can.

 

The problem with chasing coyote with a hound pack in this area, where the numbers are not high and where all the territories are not occupied, is that a chased coyote will go straight across country and will not circle back. They run like a bullet and pull the dogs with them across roads and even interstates. Our land in VA, MD and PA is more roaded than it is in Maine.

 

Not sure of the history of snaring in Maine, but I suspect it was because snares set for coyotes were creating some problems with bears and moose? Snares are mostly legal in the U.S., as are leghold traps, calling to shoot, etc. We are a hunting country and thanks to sensible wildlife and land management almost every type of wildlife has come roaring back (some at record numbers, like the coyote) in recent years.

 

The key to protecting hunting is to talk a lot about wildlife population dynamics. The more people know about animal densities, and the more emphasis hunters put on habitat protection, the more they understand that hunters are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Most Animal Right people know nothing about wild lands, wild animals, history, population dynamics, hunting economics, fair chase ethics, etc., and seem to think wild animals die with a morphine drip in heated rooms with Mozart on the stereo. If you stand up with knowledge and common sense these folks cannot hold up their end and stand exposed as "Bambi and Thumper" fools who clearly do not care about the land or the animals on it.

 

 

Patrick

[Albert Ladd 0]

Not sure of the history of snaring in Maine, but I suspect it was because snares set for coyotes were creating some problems with bears and moose?

Pburns, good info. Didn't know you people had a bounty down there.

The snaring loss had very little to do with catching any bear or moose. As far as i know only one moose was ever killed in a snare, one dog, two eagles and one lynx. And the snaring was started back in the 70's. The problem was with a few anti's claiming cruelty and the fact that our wildlife department has many who would never support trapping.

last year some hunters banned together for a derby to help kill off a few coyote. All forms of hunting would be and was legal ways. A few complained, the State Governor complained to the wildlife Commissioner and the supporters where told that the hunt was not seen as being "appropriate".

We have TWO Maine's the rurel north. And the city type south. The north is the area with the wildlife problems like deer killed in the deep snow, but the south has the majority of the votes.

Plus when the ANTI's threaten a lawsuit. The state does everything to appease them rather than go to court.--Politicks!

[madhunter 16]

hornhunter how much would it cost to get a pelt sent over in sterling i would love one

[Albert Ladd 0]

Wouldn't think shipping would be to drastic. not much weight

Tanning is about $30 US dollars, A big Eastern coyote would probably sell for $35? this year.

So my guess would be around $100 US. No idea what that figures in Sterling.

[PBurns 9]

Well, I did a bit of a look-see at the hisory of coyoye snaring in Maine, and it seems it was outlawed because the law that liberalized coyote snaring in Maine a few years back was poorly written and it created some stuff that was pretty grizzly in the field.

 

To be precise, the Maine law allowed folks to check their snares only every three days, and folks could actually get permission to check them only every seven days. The result of this long lag-time between putting out a locking snare and checking it is that a lot of snared coyotes apparently ended up as "jellyheads" -- a situation where blood can pump into the head of a snared animal, but not pump out. It's a pretty grizzly picture, and it's not the kind of thing you want to see on TV (a concern of both politicians and and hunters seeking to protect more mainstream hunting). The bottom line is that this horrific medical condition was occuring pretty often (double digit percentages), and it was a direct consequence of snaring a pretty big animal (a coyote) in a locking-snare (illegal in the UK) that was rarely checked (note that other states require snares to be checked every day or even twice a day).

 

One reason the coyote snaring program was abolished was that Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife had an $8 million deficit in 2002, the year it was abolished, and the liberalized snaring regulations that had been passed a few years earlier were costing a fair amount of money to administer (costs actually tripled). A final nail in the coffin was that biologists looking into deer-coyote interactions said deer populations had been going up for better than 20 years and coyote snaring was not needed to protect deer populations.

 

For the record, regular trapping is still legal in Maine. See >> http://www.state.me.us/ifw/hunttrap/trapperinfo2005-2006.htm for the statistics, which show better than 2,100 coyote were taken in Maine the last year for which numbers are given (also more than 10,000 beaver, 2000 Fischer, 1.400 red fox, and 2,200 Marten). The same page also gives pelt prices -- just $16 for a coyote. To tell the truth, that's not much money to trap, skin and flesh an animal.

 

Patrick

[Albert Ladd 0]

To be precise, the Maine law allowed folks to check their snares only every three days, and folks could actually get permission to check them only every seven days. The result of this long lag-time between putting out a locking snare and checking it is that a lot of snared coyotes apparently ended up as "jellyheads ,

 

Patric! These are as you stated killing snares. A 1 day check was not needed when an animal is DEAD. In the Coyotes by the hundres threadYou explained to everyone the size of the land we live in. One of my snaring areas was a 40 mile drive by truck, Then a 15 mile ride by snow-sled up a frozen lake. ONE WAY! Hardly feasible to be checking daily. A relaxing snare with a lock that does not tighten would have to be checked daily just like a trap. The jelly head thing was a problem with some of the older snares not having Killing locks and a compression spring to quicken the animals death. These issues had been addressed my The Maine trapper Association and resolved in an agreement with the state. After this we all had the same uniform equipment

 

One reason the coyote snaring program was abolished was that Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife had an $8 million deficit in 2002, the year it was abolished, and the liberalized snaring regulations that had been passed a few years earlier were costing a fair amount of money to administer

 

A total of $20,000 each year was appropriated for the program. At no time did the entire amount get spent. Most of us snares did it free. Only one year did I except any pay. And that was around $250 dollars

In Quebec they paid a mans yearly wages to snare, trap and shoot coyote year round to help out the deer herd.

 

 

A final nail in the coffin was that biologists looking into deer-coyote interactions said deer populations had been going up for better than 20 years and coyote snaring was not needed to protect deer populations.

 

And since the snaring program was ended the numbers are going down. We just had one of the best years possible for deer hunting mild weather with plenty of snow , yet the kill was down by over 1,400.

I’m also a measurer “Scorerâ€for the Maine Antler and Skull trophy Club. Scorable antlers are down about 25% from last year, this a 5 year steady decline.

 

 

 

just $16 for a coyote. To tell the truth, that's not much money to trap, skin and flesh an animal.

No It’s not! Truth is most of the snares just left them in the woods. Some years there wasn’t even a market for the coyote. Why would you waist your time thawing one out to skin it if you couldn’t sell it.

It’s only been the last few years that the fur had much of a value.

Money wasn’t the point. Helping the deer herd to come through hard winters was our goal. I can assure you It cost me money every year to snare these coyote.

[PBurns 9]

I am have no doubt there is a way to snare coyote without getting 10 to 25 percent of the catch jelly-heads, but that's what the study by the professional wildlife managers showed was actually happening in Maine during the brief period when Maine was paying people a bounty to snare coyote.

 

Let's face it -- a lot of snare folks are doing it on the cheap and the way they learned it 20 years ago. The reason people snare rather than trap (at least in this country) is that snares are very cheap -- 100 snares is not too expensive, while 100 modern legholds is going to cost you quite a lot more. A simple locking snare costs so little you can leave it in the woods and not go back -- tell yourself the animal is dead, etc. That's why so many snares are set without labels on them -- people want the "freedom" to be irresponsible. A trap is a little more expensive and people generally don't do that -- it's a different way of doing business. Even when a snare is well set with locks and deer stops and compression springs, there is an occasional bad snare -- that's why most state laws require people to check snares and traps everyday. In my opinion, if you can't reach the snare economically, it's a snare that should not be set. Snares fail to kill a known, predictable and quantifiable percentage of the time, and so a person coming by every 24 hours with a .22 is the cure for that failure. Failure to provide a back-up for snare failure is why coyote snaring is no longer legal in the state of Maine.

 

The Maine coyote snaring bill that was passed in 2001 was a serious problem. It was written by Howard Chick who was a Maine state representative and a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Fisheries and Wildlife and, at the time, about age . I am sure Mr. Chick is a good man, but he is not a well-informed one. The bill he drafted was terribly written, and the result was that an activity that was once legal is now banned. Before the 2001 law, coyote snaring was legal but done only when there was an observed problem with coyote on deer or stock. Generally that's not a problem, and when it was, no one in Maine had a problem with setting snares (they were generally set by people who knew what they were doing). After the Chick legislation, every one was setting snares willy-nilly, and a lot of them were done very, very poorly. Bang -- the practice was abolished. Like it or not, we in the hunting community need to realize that bad practices by a few can end up hurting us all.

 

One important lesson, I think, it to never have a politician write a wildlife law without input from professional wildlife managers who also hunt. In America every single wildlife manager I have even met also hunts, but they also have some idea of how laws can go wrong -- and the price to be paid if they do. Maine is a hunting country, and if Howard Chick had left well enough alone, snaring coyote (when needed) would still be legal in Maine. Let me say that Howard Chick did not MEAN it to go the way it did. He is a hunter who thought he was helping boost deer populations. The same can be said, however, for the Animal Rights lunatics who want to end all hunting in the woods. Both sides often have a commonality -- not much knowledge about wildlife population dynamics, and an absolute certainty in their belief structure. In the end, I think snaring coyote will come back to Maine, but it will be under the old rules with restrictions that require the kind of compression springs Hornhunter mentions -- as well as 24-hour checks (which I think are good ethical common sense). A paid bounty program on coyote is probably gone for good. In the meantime, there are leghold traps and bullets to handle nuisance coyotes, and far more deer than anyone can eat or shoot. In fact, there are so many damn deer in this country, we are now putting venison into dog food!

 

 

Patrick

[Albert Ladd 0]

from patrick=. The bill he drafted was terribly written, and the result was that an activity that was once legal is now banned.

 

I no not where your getting your info from, Maybe you could post some link so the rest of us can be so well informed?

 

The only reason snaring was stopped, was because the anti's threatened to sue if the state didn't get a incidental take permit from the Federal Government The attorney general ("Caved in to the anti's")advised the wildlife department to drop the snaring untill a permit was granted. The permit once given would free the state from any law suits if one of us snares would have accidently taken an endangered or threatened species like Canadian lynx, eagle, or a wolf.

 

That said patrick I have one question for you!--What's the number on your PETA card?