CARMEL, Maine — Behind State Rep. Jim Thorne’s house, an unpaved road meanders past the local school into hunting land—a popular destination for Carmel’s sportsmen. During the fall, ATVs and shotguns travel here Monday through Saturday—but not Sunday.
“That’s a day we lose to hunters coming to Maine,” Thorne said Monday, in disapproval of the ban on Sunday hunting, passed by the Legislature in 1883.
But now, that rule, long divisive among outdoorsmen and landowners, is facing its toughest challenge yet as the Maine Supreme Court gets set to hear oral arguments this week in a case that seeks to lift the prohibition on Sunday hunting.
At the center of the effort is a lawsuit filed against the state by a Maine couple—Virginia and Joel Parker—that argues the ban on Sunday hunting violates the 2021 amendment to the Maine Constitution — which gives Mainers the right to grow and harvest their own food. The Parkers believe that applies to hunting.
But that’s facing pushback — especially from interests representing Maine landowners.
“There’s no word ‘hunt’ in the constitution that was in the new provision of the right to food amendment.” Karla Black, deputy executive director of Maine Woodland Owners, a nonprofit, said on Monday.
Beyond lacking legal grounding, Black sees a return to Sunday hunting as antagonizing to the generosity of landowners. Maine is unique in that — despite around 94% of forest land being privately owned — hunters have the right to stalk game anywhere that isn’t specifically posted. The fear is that, if hunters are allowed on private land seven days a week, more people could post “keep out” their property.
“It will have the opposite effect. That it could reduce the amount of land that is open to hunters,” Black adds.
Legal expert Timothy Zerillo believes the fate of the case in the Maine Supreme Court hinges on the language of the Right to Food amendment, saying, “Here what it comes down to is does harvest mean to hunt.”