This commentary is by Lisa Chase, a resident of Putney.
I am not in favor of trapping. I do not choose to do it. I recoil from the fact of trapping. But neither can I condemn trapping, and I am strongly opposed to outlawing it.
I have enormous respect for trappers. Trappers are among the most knowledgeable observers of wildlife out there. Their understanding of animal behaviors and of the whole systems of the natural world and of the complexities of wildlife-human intersectionality is deeper and more nuanced than most.
A skilled hunter or trapper is following an ancient pursuit with customs and observances codified in every culture. There are very few of them now.
Most licensed trappers are not wanton sadists. As in most things, the inexcusable behaviors of a few irretrievably tarnish every practitioner. Skillful trappers respect the animals they trap and revere the natural world with a broad understanding. Love would not be too strong a word.
How to accept this statement while at the same time holding a natural aversion to torturing any creature to death seems an impossible challenge to most of us. The fact of suffering is a challenge to humans. It is a challenge the rest of nature does not share.
Death is usually traumatic to most creatures. It inevitably serves the natural system and is rarely gratuitous. We are a part of nature, so the question becomes: To what extent is the practice of trapping gratuitous?
Trapping for furs for us to wear when we do not need furs to wear is gratuitous.The gainful activity of trapping has been severely curtailed in the best way possible: by people declining to buy furs. There is a significantly diminished market for furs, hence a very reduced participation in the practice of trapping. The consumer takes responsibility. Independently of policy. Would that we could do that in so many other areas.
I am also moved to call out the concern for risk to pets as an argument against trapping. To the extent that dogs and cats are a part of the human family with no working role — such as sheep dogs — but serve only to be affective companions, there can be no justification for pets to be allowed incursion into the natural world, into the wild. The wild should be protected from the radical disturbance of pets.
We all know this: Cats kill too many birds, dogs romping off leash disturb nesting turkeys, and on and on. The intensity of the debate around trapping should go on with no reference to pets. Defense of pets corrupts any argument around trapping. There is no place for pets in the wild. Every dog and cat owner is responsible for control of their pet, just as every hunter and trapper is responsible for following best practices — whatever those are determined to be.
Our love for our pets is blinding us to the complexities of the natural world. It is blinding us to our anthropomorphism with respect to the wild. It is only our modern and extreme removal from the natural world that leads us to think that it is our responsibility to stamp out all suffering.
We can protect our pets from the kind of suffering that the natural world visits on its creatures. We can make our pets the equivalent of us. But the natural world is not there to be an object of our sentimental delight. It is not ours. It is not there for us. We are finding this out in ever-greater knowing every day and not quickly enough.
Do not, yourself, trap. Do not wear furs. That’s not so difficult. Then consider not eating meat you don’t raise or know, yourself. Do not mow a lawn. Do not pollute — throw nothing away, buy no plastic, ride a bike, do not fly, buy nothing. It’s not easy, is it?
Once we accomplish all those correctives we will find ourselves in another age where we may well need trappers after all. Do not try to “fix” complexities we struggle with or fail to understand with prohibitions against our fellows. People are different.
