Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has issued a nearly $70,000, no-bid contract, set to last through all of 2025, for a federal agency to identify and neutralize the unnamed predators killing the endangered Piping Plover.

According to the $68,890 no-bid contract, the bird faces possible extinction in Maine, due largely to habitat loss and predation, though the bird is not endangered nationwide.

Maine’s Wildlife Department did not believe they were up to the task and instead contracted with the Federal U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Wildlife Services to deal with the plover predators.

In justifying the expenditure, Maine’s Wildlife Department cited the plover’s status as “State Endangered” and the drop in population from 66 breeding pairs in the state in 2002 to only 22 in 2008.

The contract conspicuously fails to mention any recent population numbers, which paint a far less bleak picture of the plover population.

The Maine Audubon Society published a report in January detailing the plight of plovers in 2023 and found that 157 breeding pairs lived on Maine’s beaches, far more than the older data cited in the contract.

The Wildlife Department claims it gave the contract to a federal agency because no other entities it is aware of, either public or private, have both the proper expertise and federal permits required to combat the plovers’ predators.

That is also why the state issued a no-bid contract instead of considering proposals and quotes from multiple potential contractors.

Maine’s Wildlife Department claimed they would consider other options if they learned of other qualified entities.