This commentary is by Barbara Felitti of Huntington, who retired after working for 28 years at the Institute for Sustainable Communities in Montpelier and as a consultant for international community development and NGO support work.
The Fish and Wildlife Department has proposed trapping regulations that are based, in part, on research data not available for public review. Yes. This would be like the U.S. EPA passing a drinking water standard but not letting the public see the data the standard is based on.
The furbearer regulation, which includes both “best” management practices for trapping and requirements for hunting coyotes with hounds, is now with the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules. LCAR will determine whether or not to approve the regulation, most likely at a meeting in November.
At LCAR hearings in October, the department and other trapping proponents talked about the 20-plus years of trapping research to develop “best” management practices in accordance with international standards for 23 furbearer species. The results are published in a prestigious journal — Wildlife — which is a “gold-standard”.
All true. Except what the department and trapping proponents deftly neglect to mention is that the published research they refer to covers only one type of trap in the proposed regulation — leghold traps (also referred to as foothold or restraining traps). The Wildlife report they love to cite does not cover body-gripping or kill traps.
The Legislature explicitly stated that “best” management practices for trapping should be based on “research and investigation.” Yet there is no comprehensive, peer-reviewed research report about “best” management practices for body-gripping/kill traps that is publicly available. Let me rephrase that. The department proposes “best” management practices for body-gripping kill traps based on research data that the public can’t see. Yes, the emperor has no clothes most certainly comes to mind.
I contacted the department for research data on body-gripping/kill traps. I asked for a peer-reviewed, published article or monograph. I was given booklets about how to use body-gripping kill traps, but no research data. I was told “we don’t have those data”; that is, the department does not have the actual data or a published research report. I was instructed to contact the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies or the Fur Institute of Canada to get the data.
I contacted both. AFWA told me that it does have the Fur Institute’s research data on body-gripping kill traps, but it has a memorandum of understanding that does not allow it to release the data to a third party, in this case, the public. I contacted the Fur Institute of Canada and was told that it would “involve quite a lot of work” to assemble the data and received no further information. Neither AFWA nor the Fur Institute could provide me with a published report with research data for “best” management practices for body-gripping kill traps.
I am not questioning the existence of the data. But we can’t see it.
I worked for many years for an organization founded by Gov. Madeleine Kunin, helping citizens and governments in former communist countries learn how to work together, using Vermont as a model of good governance.
It is a sad irony to be in a situation where that model of good governance is failing its citizens. It would be a betrayal of the public trust in the legislative process if this rule is passed based on data that the public cannot review.
