Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Be The Change For Animals: Trapped

What do you think of when you see the word "trapper"? Does it evoke Daniel Boone, Jeremiah Johnson, mountain men? Did you figure it pretty much went away along with horse drawn carriages and hoop skirts? Not so fast.
Grizzly Adams, circa 1860
Photo Credit: 
www.legendsofamerica.com
Fur trapping is back with a vengeance. I learned about this from Outside magazine (Nowhere to run, Aug. 2014, pg. 29, by Ryan Krogh). The U. S. fur trade is now a $15 billion industry. Even at $50 per pelt, that's a lot of coyotes, bobcats, beavers, and muskrats (to be fair, bobcat pelts can be worth over $2000). 

Now who is buying? When is the last time you saw bobcat trimmed coats or heard a friend wishing she had a beaver hat?

Turns out that China and Russia consider fur-trimmed coats quite fashionable. You read that right. Our American wildlife is being massively killed - in an excruciatingly inhumane way - so that folks in China and Russia can wear them. 

It's not just the wildlife either. From the Outside article:


"In the past two years, there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of incidents of dogs and cats getting caught in traps…these non target species, in trapping lingo, have become unintended victims…"

A Google search for "dog dies in trap" produced over 4 million results. These stories are too awful  - in one case a 12-year old boy in Idaho watched his dog die in a trap as his parents tried frantically to save her. The image search was heartbreaking. Those images aren't shared here. If you want to see them, they're on Google.

Ready to help? Start by signing the Change.org petition asking the Secretary of the Interior and the Director of U.S. Wildlife Services to ban trapping in the United States. And anything you can do to increase awareness will help environmental groups get a ban in place. According to the Outside article, precious little success has been had at the state level.








5 comments:

  1. Ugh! I hate hearing this!! I had no clue. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I signed the petition! (I completely forgot it was BtC4A today!!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a horrible way for any animal to die. This is an excellent topic to share today, thank you for educating us. How sad that U.S. wildlife is becoming anyone's fashion accessory. Hoping a federal law can come around soon!
    Nice to meet you by the way. We took part in the BtC4A hop for our "No Tail Left Behind" campaign that educates on the painful truth of tail docking.
    Pixel Blue Eyes & Mom Jenny Lewis
    http://www.notailleftbehind.com/2014/07/truth-of-harmful-tail-docking-hurts.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had to clue trapping was an issue anymore, I thought as you said that it was an old fashioned sort of tradition. It's quite disturbing. Thanks for the new information, great post.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I had no idea that trapping was still going on. I am signing the petition and hoping for a change!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am not against trapping if done legally. I know trappers. People do not realize that the license fees from trapping pay to maintain conservation lands. Where would that money come from otherwise? The hunting license fees are in the millions per state. These are fees paid for licenses on public and private lands. Trapping and hunting do benefit the animal populations and prevent overcrowding.

    However with our hunting dogs we have to worry about them getting stuck in a trap. There are traps that are non lethal. I know the upland sport dog association has been working for years on this issue with little help from other organizations. Rather than a wholesale ban on trapping, I would like to see a push toward regulating the kinds of traps allowed.

    ReplyDelete

We love to know what you have to meow, bow-wow, growl, or just plain howl. Leave a comment for us!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...