Recently, trappers have been trying to tie their activity in with hunting and fishing, that voting to prohibit trapping on public lands will lead to similar restrictions against hunters and fishermen.
That’s nonsense. There’s no comparison between trapping and other outdoor sports. There also isn’t any history of that in states that have instituted trapping prohibitions. Besides, hunting and fishing are protected by the Montana Constitution.
Trappers are a fringe group that enjoys killing. When they set their traps and snares, they know full well the mayhem and suffering they cause to the creatures unlucky enough to be caught in them. Trappers don’t mind “executing” trapped animals by stomping, drowning, clubbing, strangling, injecting poison, freezing, and shooting, because they like it.
Trapping isn’t done to put food on the table, but rather to ravage the public wildlife trust for financial gain, supplying the fashions in China, Russia, and elsewhere. We as the public do not have to tolerate this barbaric “tradition” any longer on our public lands, granting trappers an exclusive use of wildlife, the rest of us be damned.
Don’t be fooled, trapping is not about management, but is profiteering through the destruction of wildlife, practiced by people lacking common empathy and decency.
It’s time for the good people of Montana to stand up for what’s right and do the moral thing by voting for I-177. It’s time to end this “legal” tradition of animal abuse and cruelty, practiced by a small minority of sadistic individuals.
Mike Koeppen
Florence