Must Read!!! Grrrrr

Review journal article named "let's make trapping a thing of distant past"

Then please tell me how this makes you feel

Shannon . . . . don't jump just yet! There is some sanity in the world.

As some of you know, Montana is facing a ballot initiative on trapping this year. Here is an insightful and well-written piece about the battle we are all facing.


Initiative 169: Oppression versus sound science


15 hours ago • By Keith Kubista


We are at a very perilous crossroads with regard to the future of proven and sustained wildlife management, our rural Montana heritage and multiple public land use traditions. Animal rights activists want to eliminate trapping, and the truth is they are abusing the ballot box to accomplish this emotional and biologically deficient endeavor.

Trappers have a deep appreciation for wildlife and have always been respectful of our natural and renewable resources. Trappers work tirelessly with wildlife conservation professionals, fish and game agencies and other user groups to avoid conflicts where they arise or may exist, rather than attempt to exclude any use or activity by others. Montana is a very large state with multiple opportunities for all forms of recreation, including sustainable harvest of individual animals by the use of trapping.

The history of Montana is steeped in the beneficial use of our natural resources, including trapping, and throughout the years trappers have implemented best management practices and use the very same equipment wildlife agencies use when they trap animals for research purposes.

Many of our wildlife populations from deer, moose, antelope and even sage grouse are under constant threat of mortality from an abundance of predators. Trapping is a significant, effective and practical tool used to manage predators to ensure other wildlife numbers do not decline. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks utilizes sound science for resource management and recognizes trapping to be biologically sustainable. In fact so do many professional wildlife authorities such as the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and The Wildlife Society, North America’s association of wildlife scientists.

As Montanans we must protect our rights to public land use and guard against those who wish to eliminate our way of life just because they don’t agree with what we do. The longstanding tradition of trapping lives large across our treasured state, I urge you to reject I-169 and ponder this question: What outdoor activity prohibition is next on the animal rights activists agenda?

Keith Kubista is the president of Montana Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife

Here is the reference article.

However, please keep in mind that one of the board members is also the president of the Las Vegas humane society she is also sitting on the wildlife commission & trapping regulation committee. Not very hard to find out how the senior scientist for the Humane Society out of Washington DC was brought into comments to the Las Vegas review Journal


To the editor:

Trapping wild animals for recreational or commercial purposes is often defended as a traditional activity as old as our nation itself (“Animal activists have yet to target trappers,” March 6 John L. Smith column).

However, times and traditions change. We no longer allow contests in which domestic or wild animals are forced to fight one another, and we no longer pursue the great whales for oil with which to light street lamps. No longer do we look at wild animals as commodities to provide for human needs, but rather as members of biotic communities whose wholeness and integrity we celebrate.

While trapping wild animals may mean different things to different people, it is always something that causes suffering and distress to its victims. As people increasingly enjoy the outdoors to bike, hike and jog, the companion animals they bring with them for company will be exposed to traps set near trails that will injure, maim or kill them. People should not be afraid to enjoy the outdoors because of the threats these devices pose.

Charles Darwin was an early critic of trapping, pointing out its cruelty long before we began to understand its impact on animal populations and the ecological destruction it can cause. Later, trapping eliminated the gray wolf from most of its historic range, a wrong we are only beginning to right. Someday the practice will be banned in the United States, as it is already in many countries. Trapping is inhumane and, like whaling and animal fighting, should be only a distant memory of earlier times.

JOHN HADIDIAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The author is a senior scientist of wildlife public policy for the Humane Society of the United States.

Shannon:

He may be a scientist but doesn't know his facts. The gray wolf was not eliminated by trapping. That's fiction pure and simple. Early settlers competed with wolves constantly and trapping wasn't much of a deterrent for the wolves. However, several other things were. One was poison and the other was loss of habitat and food sources. When the buffalo were gone, the wolves were greatly reduced. When Compound 1080 came along, wolves were extremely susceptible to it.

Answer me this, Mr. Hadidian . . . if trapping "eliminated the gray wolf," then how come trapping wolves continues in Alaska and Canada, almost unrestricted, and yet the wolf continues to flourish there? Trappers in Alaska and Canada have a season of harvest, but they can use snares, large baits, snow machines to improve access and increase the number of traps, etc. Seems to me something else caused the wolf's demise.

Just like the recent Montana statement all of these responses my the antis have been ruled by emotions not facts!... do the research, analyze The findings, compile the facts and then make an educated comment instead of continuing to regurgitate this ignorance