This commentary is by Anne Jameson, a resident of Marshfield.
On a sunny day in May 2017, community members in Hyde Park, Vermont, were horrified to see a red fox with a steel-jaw leghold trap on one of her legs.
In a desperate attempt to escape, the fox unearthed the trap’s stake and was left with the trap attached to her paw, consigning her to a slow, painful death. The game warden was contacted, and the fox was later found and euthanized due to the severity of her injuries, hopefully not leaving a den of orphaned kits to starve.
Again, on Nov. 28 of this year, a coyote was seen in Essex trying to cross Route 289 with a leghold trap on his/her leg. A driver got out of a car and allegedly shot the coyote to put the animal out of its misery.
These are just two of many incidents that provide clear evidence of the horrific cruelties inherent with trapping, much of which happens out of public sight due to the secretive nature of trapping.
Trapping is essentially allowed year-round between the official season and then landowners trapping under the dangerously broad and unregulated “wild animals doing damage” statute. This blatant cruelty to animals raises many questions and a great deal of frustration with the Fish & Wildlife Department for continuing to endorse trapping and turning a blind eye to the reckless, unregulated, out-of-season trapping conducted by landowners.
There was hope for relief earlier this year with the introduction of bill S.201, a ban on leghold traps. Unfortunately, the bill was amended to still allow trapping but required Fish & Wildlife to adopt “best management practices” for trapping in an effort to address animal welfare, trap selectivity, and public safety concerns, offering it a prime opportunity to review existing regulations and make recommendations to the Legislature by January 2023.
In response to the amended bill, two Vermont wildlife protection organizations, Protect Our Wildlife and Green Mountain Animal Defenders, and one national organization, Humane Society of United States, concluded that, while we do not believe that leghold traps can ever be humane, we still saw value in this effort.
As part of Fish & Wildlife’s deliberation process, it asked for recommendations, so a letter was sent to the agency by POW, GMAD and HSUS in May. Sadly, these recommendations — which included a ban on drowning trapped animals and prohibiting body-crushing kill traps on land (including our public lands) — weren’t accepted by Fish & Wildlife.
This signals to us that Fish & Wildlife is just going through the motions with no intention to offer truly meaningful changes for wildlife subject to traps.
Fish & Wildlife’s recently announced recommendations fall far short of meeting the legislative mandate. Despite a very specific requirement to improve the criteria of how trapped animals may be killed to alleviate suffering, grossly inhumane methods such as choking, bludgeoning and stomping were still not prohibited.
The recommendations also do little to nothing to improve animal welfare; protect unintended victims, such as companion animals and other non-targeted animals, including protected species; provide reasonable safety regulations for the setting of traps near trailheads and other recreational areas on public lands; and address other pressing issues.
Surveys conducted in 2017 by Protect Our Wildlife through UVM’s Center for Rural Studies and a recent study conducted by Fish & Wildlife both reveal that the majority of Vermonters polled oppose recreational and fur trapping, which accounts for most of the trapping in Vermont.
The coyote and the fox showed Vermonters their immense suffering. Let’s honor their lives by passing sensible laws to prevent tragedies like these from happening in the future. Together, we can ban trapping in Vermont.
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Anne Jameson: Fish & Wildlife is just going through the motions on trapping - vtdigger.org
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