This commentary is by Madeline Cowan, a resident of Northfield.
As conversations within the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department continue about the future of recreational trapping, new pro-trapping arguments continue to emerge in community forums, opinion pieces, and statements from the department.
I’ve collected a few thoughts on those arguments here, and I encourage those who share my doubts to contact their legislators today and make their voices heard.
- No one should be able to tell me what I can and can’t do on my own land.
We all accept that people do not have immunity to do whatever they want on their land. There are many things you’re not allowed to do on your land: counterfeit money, dump hazardous waste, kick a dog. Owning property does not make you exempt from the rule of law.
- Trappers are performing a vital public service at no cost to the taxpayer — without them, we would need to pay for wildlife management.
First, recreational trapping is not a free lunch for taxpayers. Publicly available data suggests that trappers likely paid around $30,000 for licenses in 2019. In comparison, the salary of just one of the state employees managing the trapping program is about $55,000. That’s a deficit of $25,000.
Additionally, if wildlife management is a vital public service, it should be managed like one. We don’t rely on recreational teachers or recreational wastewater management technicians, so why are we relying on recreational wildlife managers?
- Trapping licenses pay for critical conservation efforts that would otherwise go unfunded.
Vermont has one of the strongest outdoor recreation economies in the country (ranked third as a percentage of our state GDP). In 2020, more than a million people visited Vermont state parks. With daily entrance fees ranging from 50 cents to $5, that’s hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in annual revenue. The state’s conservation projects are not primarily funded by trapping. They’re funded by fees associated with hiking, fishing, hunting, and other significantly more popular forms of outdoor recreation.
- Trapping is a Vermont tradition, and people who don’t like it shouldn’t live here.
This type of thinking has an ugly history in our country. The fact that a practice is deeply rooted in a regional community’s identity does not mean that it is humane, moral, safe, or acceptable. Furthermore, suggesting that people who don’t like trapping shouldn’t live in Vermont is a mischaracterization of why people oppose trapping. Opposition to trapping isn’t a personal preference (“Trapping is unpleasant,” “I don’t want to trap,” etc.); it’s a moral conviction about the behavior of others.
- Nature isn’t a Disney movie — animals that aren’t killed by trappers would otherwise die more painful deaths via illness or predation.
While it would be difficult to know whether dying in a trap is better or worse than being eaten by a fox, we do know that dying in a trap is not as humane as it could be. If we claim to care about the suffering of wild animals, we should care enough to make the experience of dying in a trap less painful. Increasing the required frequency of trap checks from 24 hours to 12 (set traps at night, check them in the morning) would be a good place to start.
- People eat the animals they trap — otherwise these people would eat factory farmed meat.
This may be true in part, but Vermonters trap many species that they typically choose not eat, such as weasels, mink, foxes and bobcats. The concept of trapping as an alternative source of meat is relevant only for species that trappers actually do eat (like beavers), not for the many species who are trapped for their fur alone.
- Most trappers behave ethically, and any exceptions are just a few bad apples.
Laws don’t exist for the people who always do the right thing; they exist for the people who do the wrong thing. Most of us would never dream of committing fraud or lying on our tax returns, but there are some people who do. The only way to prevent those bad actors from doing the wrong thing is to create laws that apply to everyone.
With the state Legislature and the Fish & Wildlife Department poised to make key choices about the future of recreational trapping in Vermont, we can’t risk allowing unproven claims to influence their decisions.
Let’s encourage our leaders to rely on honest scientific evidence and careful moral reasoning as they chart our path forward.