This commentary Rod Coronado from the town of Orange. He is a town cemetery commissioner, facilities manager for Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary, and a lifelong environmental and animal advocate.
I am a resident of the town of Orange and a landowner and caretaker for lands that are sometimes trapped for beaver. I have also reviewed the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department’s draft recommended changes to trapping in Vermont.
An acceptance level of five minutes (300 seconds) for an animal to die in a body-gripping trap will never be accepted by the public as humane.
The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies states that over $40 million has been spent and thousands of animals have been sacrificed in decades of redundant experiments to develop humane standards. And yet the standard acceptable level of pain experienced by a conscious animal in a lethal trap is five minutes? Totally unacceptable in a caring and compassionate society.
Also, the reliance on invasive live animal experiments funded and supported by the fur industry itself (Fur Institute of Canada) is not ethical or socially acceptable to determine standards for animal welfare. The continuing development of best management practices through the ongoing testing of new models of traps on the market equates to even more animal suffering, all to convince the public that trapping is humane.
Also, any setback rules for traps should also apply to those traps set underwater. The Vermont Agency of Transportation contracts with two trappers who regularly set underwater traps for nuisance beaver immediately off roads near culverts.
In our community, there is an after-school program that regularly takes students to the same beaver colonies where VTrans sets traps for beaver that could easily not be seen by an exploring child. In addition, I have often seen drivers on Route 302 stop to let their dogs out right where underwater traps were placed last October.
Last month, a South Corinth resident’s pet dog was captured and killed in a body-gripping trap that adheres to BMP standards. This did nothing to prevent any level of trauma and suffering by both the dog and owner.
Vermont is no longer wilderness. It is a state lived in by countless citizens who love to take their dogs out for a walk in the woods. The fact that 13 pets were trapped in 2022 speaks to the continuing conflict that will exist as long as trapping and other forms of recreation are forced to coexist in Vermont.
Last November, the Fish & Wildlife Department released the findings of an independent survey of Vermont residents on their attitudes toward trapping and animals that are trapped. The survey reveals a clear majority of Vermonters are opposed to trapping for fun, profit and fur.
Let’s remember that, according to Fish & Wildlife, there are fewer than 300 licensed trappers in the state, just a fraction of 1% of our total population. The agency says the survey will be used to “inform our current and future furbearer management and outreach efforts.”
For over 300 years, furbearing animals in what is now Vermont have been continuously exploited with inhumane trapping methods that sometimes take up to five minutes to crush their victims. These are not “best management practices”; this is state-sanctioned animal cruelty and the continuation of a centuries-old for-profit tradition.
Most animals trapped in Vermont end up on the international fur market, where the biggest buyers are currently Russia and China. Deflated fur prices mean trappers are lucky if they get $20 for a beaver or fisher pelt. Vermont’s wildlife is worth way more ecologically than these prices.
