Department of Fish and Wildlife stands its ground on trapping and coyote hunting
By Michael Bielawski
Despite the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR) seeking changes to proposed rules for trapping and coyote hunting, the Fish and Wildlife Department showed Thursday it is mostly sticking to its guns.
Specifically, LCAR raises four concerns with the Department concerning the proposed trapping and coyote hunting regs required by recent legislation. Two regs were slightly modified, but not to the degree that LCAR may have wished. Another two were left unchanged.
Disagreements on coyote hunting
LCAR wanted hunting dogs pursuing coyotes to be within eyesight/shouting distance at all times. The compromise that the Department is offering is that the dogs should wear a radio-controlled collar during the hunt.
The sight and shouting requirement was not recommended by the Department.
The proposed language concerning the collars reads, “‘Training/control’ collar is any family of collars that deliver audible tones and electrical stimulation of varying intensity and duration to the neck of a dog via a radio-controlled electronic device incorporated into the collar.”
The Department voted to affirm this proposal.
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Disagreement over whether trapping is “hunting”
Another point of contention seems to be whether trapping should formally be recognized as a form of hunting. Most of LCAR seems to think no, whereas the Department mostly says yes.
The proposal for Thursday by the Department was to essentially define trapping without the word “hunting” in the definition. After some debate they backtracked, ultimately adding ‘hunt’ back into the definition.
The definition as approved at this hearing now reads, “‘Trapping’ means to hunt, take or attempt to take fur-bearing animals with traps including the dispatching of such lawfully trapped fur-bearing animals.”
Fish & Wildlife Department board member Michael Bancroft spoke on this matter. He said, “I see adding the word hunt to the definition of trapping as a housekeeping item and I feel like LCAR objecting to us adding ‘hunt’ to the definition is somewhat petty. So I move to keep the definition of trapping to include ‘hunt’.
Disagreement over what constitutes a trail
One of the requirements for trapping is the 50’ setbacks for traps from trails that people and/or pets might travel.
The latest proposed definition of a trail by the Department reads, “a path or corridor open to the public, commonly used for nonmotorized recreational purposes such as hiking, walking, bicycling, cross-country skiing, horseback riding, and other similar activities that is designated, managed, maintained and clearly marked on municipal lands, on Vermont state-owned land, or on federal land, within the state of Vermont.”
Deleted from the prior version’s language was “as a trail on the ground with blazes, tags, or signage”.
The board voted to affirm the new language on Thursday.
F&W board member Bryan McCarthy said, “I believe very strongly that we’ve already got too broad a definition of what these public trails are and further restricting it would be not only far above and beyond what our mandate was to provide for, but it would essentially make hunting and trapping impractical in much of our landscape and I would seriously be opposed to further restrict this.”
Disagreement of setbacks for underwater and under ice trapping
Another area of dispute was whether underwater traps or traps under ice should be exempt from the trail setbacks. LCAR wanted no exception whereas the Department suggested there should be an exception.
The initial compromise proposed on Thursday read, “The Department recommends removing the setback exemption for traps in the water and under ice and, changing the application of setbacks from all public highways so that it only applies to Class 3 or Class 4 roads.”
However, this language was again modified on Thursday by the Department in favor of recommending that there simply be no 50’ setback requirement for traps under ice or water, meaning the proposed language will remain as what was previously rejected by LCAR.
LCAR will meet Dec. 14 to take a look at the latest proposals from the Department. There could potentially be more meetings at the Department if LCAR continues to dispute the Department’s proposals.
The public comments
A mix of pro and anti-trapping speakers commented during the meeting. Mike Covey, executive director of the Vermont Traditions Coalition, suggested there’s already been too much compromise by the hunter/trapper advocates.
“We’ve got a handful of legislators catering to a handful of animal rights activists,” he said.
He also said, “The board is being utilized as a tool to deal with that handful of legislators. …They’ve created a sense of fear that you need to continue to give and give to their desire.”
Sarah Gorsline of Grande Isle who works with Project Coyote spoke critically of the Department.
She said, “I wanted to highlight the fact that some of your funding comes from fishing and trapping licenses, however, a large portion of your funding also comes from general funding from the Vermont legislature and also U.S. taxpayers.”
She continued that the Department should be more accountable to all Vermonters rather than just the hunting/trapping community. She also questioned the notion that hunting/trapping improves ecosystems as advocates claim, she said that they have scientific reports suggesting otherwise.
“Our scientific studies show the exact opposite,” Gorsline said.
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Outdoors, State Government
“The sight and shouting requirement was not recommended by the Department.” Because it is ludicrous ! Ask any houndsman, even beagles chasing rabbits get out of sight, and occasionally out of hearing. Is that next ?
“Another point of contention seems to be whether trapping should formally be recognized as a form of hunting.” Is the outcome of the act the same ? Why should the method used to obtain the result dictate the activity ? Why is it up until now a trap has just been considered to be a different means to obtain the same objective as a firearm, or archery ? I could answer both of these questions, but the Johnny come lately urban refugees would not like it !
Huh. In reality though, in response to your unceasing hatred against those who weren’t randomly & inconsequentially birthed in VT:
1.) Some of your own members within your own family weren’t either – they entered VT from other states such as NY, CT, MA, after immigrating into this UNION from Europe. The ONLY “natives” in VT are full-blooded indigenous peoples.
2.) It’s simplistic that you refer to all “from away” as “urban refugees” when there remain THOUSANDS of locales within this UNION that remain much more rural, remote, & wilder than VT nearly ever was & therefore those from states such as much of Colorado, Washington, Montana, Alaska, etc. would likely refer to you as the “urban cowboy” or “flatlander”.
3.) Places change. Reality. Fact. Growing up on LI, I awoke every season to the sound of duck hunters, some of them members of my own family, blasting their winged prey from the skies amidst their often-artful blinds that dotted the vast stretches of marsh that has now been largely covered by condo’s prior to the protections of wetlands by the government.
4.) Thanks however to my own unceasing right to freedom of speech & expression within these 50 United States, and in keeping with the majority of Vermonters (as per a recent VT Fish & Wildlife poll) who oppose trapping, I still may continue to verbalize my personal distain for trapping and further express what ought to be the obvious disparity between trapping as opposed to hunting which is that (yet again):
A.) Hunting (responsibly) generally does not take out thousands of non-targeted species including domestic animals and endangered species.
B.) Hunting (responsibly) generally does not cause animals to be tortured & suffer for hours or even days on end as they bleed to death slowly or succumb to the ravages of shock as they await their fate.
I realize that hate is generally taught & passed down from one generation to the next, particularly in more insular cultural/familial frameworks. However, since the entire United States is presently under a very robust attack from Marxists, violent drug cartels, foreign adversaries, & terrorists, I’d observe that this current era in America is probably the worst point in time to continue to eat your own, so to speak.
Like I said…….
Still don’t get it; must have been the school system.