NTA - Archives

Maryland Fur Trappers Win Again!

Maryland's fur trappers appear to have once again defeated efforts by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to impose a state-wide ban on the foot hold trap. Preliminary information filtering in from the Annapolis State House says the House of Delegates version of the trap ban (HB 498) died in Committee by a vote of 14-7. Specifics on the vote have not been verified. Word of mouth from key Maryland trappers has it that the House version of the bill was voted down.
Maryland's legislators appear to be heeding the message destroying the animal rights' myth that the foot hold trap is cruel and inhumane. Maryland is the home state of HSUS. Just as Maryland's fur trappers defeated HSUS' attempt to pass a statewide trap ban last year, the combination of compelling testimony, trapper organization, hard work, and loyal allies within the legislature won the day against a revised ban modeled after the Massachusetts' trap ban that would have outlawed fur trapping. The Maryland bill contained exemptions that allowed nuisance trappers and wildlife research to continue using the foot hold trap.

Sierra Club Vows to End Trapping on
New Mexico Public Lands
(from www.wildecology.ifcnr.com)

The controversy over the power grab by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society CEO Paul Watson and fear that Watson and friends would then turn The Sierra Club into an extreme animal rights NGO appears to be an exercise smoke and mirrors with the announcement by one of the nation's most extreme animal rights groups that the environmental organization is joining the animal rights campaign against trapping.
In Defense of Animals (IDA), long seen as the West Coast affiliate of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), made the announcement that The Sierra Club was launching a "landmark campaign to ban leg-hold traps and snares on public lands in New Mexico."
Sierra Club, according to IDA, will employ the misleading and mythical rhetoric espoused by animal rights organizations that characterizes live-hold foot traps as cruel and inhumane alleging "Animals caught in a hidden steel jaw trap suffer a slow, excruciating death." These traps, in fact, are used by wildlife biologists specifically because they are not killing traps and they safely hold wolves, otters, lynx and other animals for research, relocation, reintroduction, and animal health projects. The wolves captured in Canada and Alaska to be relocated in the lower 48 States were captured safely by these traps.
The litany of misinformation includes the anti-trap anthem that captured animals chew off their legs, limbs are broken, the traps cause "agonizing pain," they orphan animals, and endanger pets. The new Sierra Club twist is to add an imagined threat to hikers, ignoring the most recent attack by a mountain lion on yet another California hiker Saturday, June 26th. The 27-year-old woman lost one eye and suffered injuries to the other and on her body.
IDA urges supporters to contact the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and make negative comments on trapping regulations.

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