Vilified more than any other wildlife management method , trapping faces constant attacks by animal-rights organizations at every level of government – from state legislation and ballot initiatives to federal legislation we see introduced every year – that seeks to remove its use by citizen sportsmen .
The path to stopping trapping is a familiar one for sportsmen , and one trappers have been fighting for decades . Emotional pleas devoid of fact and filled with outdated imagery , half-truths and outright lies simplify very complex ecosystem management issues into media-friendly sound bites that persuade uninformed urban and suburban residents into voting their way or exerting political pressure on candidates to end the practice entirely .
These shortsighted attacks , if successful , as they have been in a dozen states , saddle taxpayers and wildlife biologists with tremendous debt , destruction , disease and death .
Debt
Absent recreational trapping , state and local governments must pony up to hire professional trappers to manage wildlife conflict due to overpopulation . When social tolerances for wildlife are exceeded , taxpayers foot the bill for the irresponsible management foisted upon society by the animalrights movement – and in many cases the price is steep .
Overall , wildlife damage causes approximately $ 27 BILLION a year in economic loss .
Livestock losses to the sheep and cattle industry exceed $ 60 million a year due to coyotes alone . If you remove current coyote control efforts , something the animal-rights movement would love , consumers would face an additional $ 300 million increase in the cost of doing business to those livestock markets .
Beavers , which are primarily managed through regulated trapping , would cost taxpayers up to $ 40 million a year to keep at acceptable populations levels .
This financial warfare by animal-rights activists accomplishes their ultimate goal on two fronts : first , any ban on trapping is a direct-action victory that ends what they see as barbaric , but , secondly , the impact to residual markets pushes their agenda forward in an indirect manner .
When it comes to the consumption of livestock , the increase cost of doing business is passed along to the consumer , making it difficult ( or impossible ) for many to afford steak , chicken or eggs . When it comes to wildlife management , damage by furbearers and control methods leach funds from agencies . An increase in apex predators due to the removal of trapping or hunting has a negative impact on big-game herds , which only leave state fish and game agencies a single recourse : reduce the number of tags available to hunters ; an action that undermines the funding mechanism of the entire North American conservation model .
The Greatest Irony
While animal-rights activists wrongly paint trapping as a cruel practice that maims and kills without discrimination , what they fail to remember is that some of the greatest examples of saving and reintroducing endangered wildlife was accomplished using traps .
Endangered sea turtles and whooping cranes were protected from predation using traps , and species such as river otters , beavers , fishers and marten have been trapped and reintroduced to areas where extirpated .
The greatest irony , the poster children for animal-rights movement , the grey wolf , grizzly bear and Canada lynx have all been studied and reintroduced using trapping .
5
SPORTSMEN ’ S MONTHLY January | February 2018