This commentary is by David Kelley, a resident of Greensboro.
In his Jan. 12 VTDigger column, Jerry D’Amico claims leghold traps do “not torture or unduly harm the animal.” He even claims, “I have walked up to captured animals that were sleeping, not struggling against the device.” He claims “…animals are released unharmed, with only a numb foot.” Yes. That is right. As amazing as it sounds, Mr. D’Amico actually walks up to animals captured in leghold traps — and these animals are just sleeping!
The Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife has advised trappers (for good reason) not to post their cellphone videos on social media. But trappers like Mr. D’Amico just can’t help themselves from broadcasting the “harmless” fun (remember, according to Mr. D’Amico — some are released “unharmed” with “only a numb foot”) they are having with leghold and body-gripping traps. On Facebook the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is as hard to escape as a Conibear trap. Warning: The truth is also heart-wrenching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ6tJjGP7mk
I lived in Ennis, Montana, for six or seven years. We didn’t live too far from the Bar Seven Ranch. When beavers dammed the irrigation ditches at the ranch they called my neighbor, Curt Carson, and he killed them with Conibear traps. I helped him sometimes. I don’t need to see it on Facebook.
There was a kind of insanity to it all. For centuries, the beavers had dammed the streams and kept enough water distributed to sustain vast herds of buffalo. We killed all the beavers and so the ranchers had to dig irrigation ditches from the rivers and streams to feed vast pivots to water and feed their cattle — in some cases pumping the streams dry. The beavers could have served that purpose with a lot less cost and without drying up the streams.
Even in my home town of Greensboro, our selectboard is recognizing a new ethic toward beavers and using beaver baffles to prevent culverts from being dammed and expanding wetlands at the same time.
Curt and I came to disagree about our relationship with animals. He always insisted dogs couldn’t go to heaven. I told him, in that case, I had no interest in going myself. But Curt had grown up in a pioneer family, and trapping had been about survival. Curt and his wonderful wife, Betty, are dead now. And many of Curt’s truths are no longer true.
Jerry D’Amico’s survival does not depend on trapping. And we have, as a species, slowly come to realize that wildlife, and even domestic animals, were not put here simply to serve and support the human race. Today it is almost axiomatic that human and wildlife well-being are inextricably linked.
It is long past time to develop a new ethic that recognizes that truth. To inflict suffering on any creature for fun and recreation was never justified. But today, following a pandemic that has killed millions, with its source in an ill-considered human-wildlife relationship, and in the midst of what many call “the sixth mass extinction,” all of the evidence says “we must think anew.”
Some have already begun that process. Ten states have trapping bans — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington and New Mexico — and so do at least 108 countries, including all member countries of the European Union.
The American Animal Hospital Association, the World Veterinary Association, and the National Animal Control Association have declared that leghold traps are inhumane.
It is past time for Vermont to do the same.
