Ensnared in trap debate

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Tuesday, May 30, 2000

Ensnared in trap debate

Sport and harvest arguments fail to take hold

 

 

2000 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

 

 

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Community Compass

Linn Pulis

" Trash. " That's the name trappers give to nontargeted animals caught in their

traps and snares — like the two homeless cats recently brought to the Augusta

animal shelter with severe injuries inflicted by steel-jaw traps.

Animals are not garbage. So, while these cats recuperated and awaited adoption,

they were known by suitable names.

The cat from Fayette was called Braveheart. He valiantly survived four months of

bitter cold, snow, rain, ice and wind with a steel trap clamped to his back leg

and digging into his lower abdomen, its chain constantly dragging after him.

Fletcher, a Litchfield cat, spent three agonizing days in a leghold trap. The

broken bones and tendon damage were so severe his front leg had to be amputated,

an ordeal that nearly killed him. But he, too, was a survivor.

Veterinary care for injured, homeless animals is paid by the Kennebec Valley

Humane Society, one of their least known and most valuable services.

Braveheart and Fletcher were, however, lucky on two counts: First, they were

caught by a leg. Other creatures encountering traps are seized by the head, ear,

jaw, tail, wing, body, neck or tongue.

Second, they were rescued. Had trappers found them first, the cats would likely

have suffered the fate of most trapped animals — trampled or battered to death

with a club, shovel or bat.

Frank Conibear, a trapper with 32 years experience, wrote in " Testimony of a

Trapper " : " It is probable that no instrument was ever invented that caused as

much suffering as the common steel trap. " Conibear urged the public to demand an

end to what he called the " fiendish cruelty " of leghold traps.

However, Oscar Cronk Jr. recently wrote in The Maine Sportsman that trappers

" enjoy the sport " of finding trapped coyotes.

And trapper Bradford Walker wrote to the Maine Sunday Telegram: " ... I don't

really give a damn how long it takes a muskrat to drown or if a fox spends one

or 12 hours in a trap. "

ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING

A lot of people do give a damn, and they're not all humane society folks.

Trappers complain that deer hunters steal their traps or " blow them to

smithereens " with high-powered rifles. Gene Letourneau wrote how a trapper

griped to him that somebody " used a .22 caliber weapon to humanely kill two red

foxes " caught in his traps.

If the brutality of trapping isn't enough, consider this. Maine Department of

Inland Fisheries & Wildlife records reveal that, over a 4 1/2-year period, the

following nontargeted creatures were snared or trapped by the Department's

so-called expert, highly-trained agents: raccoons, ducks, foxes, skunks,

muskrats, porcupines, dogs, cats, sheep, woodchucks, bobcats, fishers, rabbits,

eagles, crows, squirrels, otters, black ducks, a snapping turtle, groundhogs, a

turkey vulture, ferrets and ravens.

In addition, at least 15 deer were reported trapped or snared. In one year,

three does died in these hellish devices, each doe pregnant with twin fawns.

In 1998, I told the Legislature's Fish and Wildlife Committee that two bald

eagles died in snares set by DIF & W agents. Snaring advocate George Smith

promptly responded in The Maine Sportsman that my statement was " preposterous. "

However, the eagle deaths were reported by the media, and the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service ordered the DIF & W to stop its snaring program until the matter

was resolved, facts conveniently ignored by Smith.

In 1986, Calais schoolteacher Robert McShane accidentally stepped into a

roadside trap in Moosehorn Wildlife Refuge. He took it to the refuge manager,

asking that signs be posted to protect the public. Instead, McShane was charged

with " molesting a trap " and hauled into court. The judge threw out the case.

Fletcher and Braveheart were not charged with molesting traps, perhaps because

the traps that caught them were set illegally.

DUBIOUS ATTRACTION

In a Dec. 15 column in the Kennebec Journal, Warden Steven Couture explained how

he persuades children that trapping isn't cruel. Maybe Couture doesn't know that

Dr. James Mehorter, of the University of Vermont, warns: " Psychologists know

that a lack of feeling for the pain and suffering of other living creatures is a

definite symptom of mental illness ... "

Princeton University anthropologist Dr. Ashley Montague also criticized

trapping: " To encourage such cruelty in children in the name of sports is to

encourage in the development of unfeeling people who regard this kind of violent

conduct as a normal part of life ... "

In 1999, a bill to ban traps and snares was introduced in the Maine Legislature.

Opponents pressured the bill's sponsor into withdrawing it just before a public

hearing. Fearful of open debate and " ... convinced of their own superior

rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, "

trapping supporters derailed the democratic process and effectively " surrendered

the citadel, " as poet Archibald MacLeish so eloquently put it.

Last year, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins voted to defeat a proposal to

ban traps from National Wildlife Refuges. The U.S. House of Representatives had

passed the measure with Rep. Tom Allen supporting the ban and Rep. John Baldacci

opposing it.

How shameful that America continues to be held hostage by the gun lobby even on

cruelty issues.

The next time people running for office come around soliciting your vote, tell

them about Braveheart and Fletcher. And the bald eagles. And the deer. And the

cruel traps that are now being called " land mines for wildlife. " Demand straight

answers and tell them you'll be watching their voting records very carefully.

Linn Pulis is a resident of Gardiner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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