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by Brenna Galdenzi, President of Protect Our Wildlife (POW)
We’ve all seen the videos—bears lounging in a hammock, coyotes playing with tennis balls, otters sliding down a snowy embankment—clear reminders that wild animals are capable of a wide range of emotions, not so different from our own. That’s why Protect Our Wildlife focuses on securing stronger protections for individual wild animals, recognizing that they feel happiness, pain, fear, sadness, and so much more.
While some nonprofits prioritize conserving land that’s often used for public recreational uses—including hunting and trapping—our work is different. Vermont Fish & Wildlife’s game and furbearer biologists primarily aim to maintain “sustainable” populations of moose, bobcats, bears, and other species for hunters and trappers to “harvest.” In contrast, our focus is on the animals themselves—sentient beings who are too often reduced to mere resources and subjected to antiquated and exceptionally cruel practices.
There is no justifiable reason why, in 2025, that Vermont still allows morally objectionable and inherently cruel recreational pursuits. Why do we still allow bobcats, foxes, and other animals to be caught in steel-jawed leghold traps—devices now rebranded as “Best Management Practice” traps to soften public perception?
Why does Vermont Fish & Wildlife continue to allow hunters to unleash packs of powerful hounds into our forests for six months of the year to chase down bears, all in the name of recreation? Hounders are allowed to train their hunting dogs not only on bears, but also on bobcats and other wildlife during times of year when they are rearing their young. Conflicts between hounders and private property owners are documented every year since marauding hounds can’t read posted signs.
Beavers are finally getting the recognition they deserve, but they’re still treated as vermin by Vermont Fish & Wildlife. Beavers play a vital ecological role by building dams that create wetlands and ponds—natural infrastructure that improves water quality, reduces flood risks, and supports biodiversity. Yet Fish & Wildlife allows recreational trappers to kill an unlimited number of beavers for five months each year, potentially robbing our lands of ecologically significant wetlands that thrive with heron, moose, amphibians and imperiled species like the wood turtle.
Eastern coyotes, who fill the critical ecological role once occupied by wolves, can be hunted 365 days a year in Vermont—with no bag limits, no reporting requirements, and even at night over bait piles. A recent bill before the legislature sought to ban hunting coyotes, bobcats and other furbearer species over bait piles and Fish & Wildlife fought that, even after hearing testimony from a woman whose dog was mistaken for a coyote and shot and killed at a bait pile by a neighbor in Vermont.
Sportsmen’s lobbyists routinely circle the Statehouse, claiming their “traditions” are under attack by so-called “animal rights activists”—an effort to dismiss and marginalize a growing constituency by painting them as fringe. But let’s be clear: these so-called activists include mothers, teachers, biologists, and even hunters—people who are simply frustrated by laws that feel increasingly out of step with 21st-century values. We also question the sportsmen’s logic of using norms from 200 years ago to justify today’s practices.
These outdated trapping and hunting policies do not reflect the majority of the people. And with hunting and trapping license sales steadily declining, perhaps Vermont Fish & Wildlife and the Governor will finally recognize the importance of working meaningfully with wildlife advocates. Conservation goals in Vermont will be at risk if the current wildlife governance model does not evolve. The question is: will they have the courage to modernize, to create a more humane Vermont for wildlife—and a more inclusive one where diverse voices are finally heard?
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Those declining hunting and trapping license sales will go to zero if she has her way. Why do flatlanders move here and try to Vermont into the sh*thole they moved here from?
Bingo in the front row !
Because Americans have the intrinsic right to relocate wherever the hell they want as per the US Constitution? Just as you and your family came here from elsewhere? Why don’t certain Vermont residents go back to Europe? Why did European settlers displace the Aboriginal population? Why did Europeans replace original tradition & lifestyle with different ways?
Amazing how self-professed “conservatives” abandon the rule of law and the constitution when it’s convenient and calling upon it under alternate circumstances when it personally suits them.
Fortunately, that’s not the manner under which the document is applied.
The majority of Vermonters and the majority of Americans oppose trapping. Fact. Reality.
First and foremost the Vt. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife manages our population of wildlife with the available science to maintain the existence of all wild species and not for the sole purpose of harvesting. The author of the article has provided some misinformation. Steeled jawed leg-hold traps are in violation of Vermonts Best Management Practices for Trapping. The leg-hold traps currently used will not injure the animal. Many animals are trapped this way and then radio-collared and released to be studied further. Vermont’s wetlands are highly protected, I sincerely doubt that the Fish and Wildlife Dept. would allow the complete destruction of our beaver population. Beavers are not treated as vermin, there is quite a list of protocols that are followed if the beavers have to be relocated or as a “last resort” dispatched. The authors use of packs of hounds to persue bears, is purposely misleading. Houndsmen have to follow state regulations pertaining to the number of hounds used {6}. I’ve been hunting for 55 yrs. and have yet to see a houndsmen with more than 3. Owning 6 dogs today is quite a financial resposibility. Diverse voices can be heard if they are backed up with emperical evidence.
Thanks for the real facts Dennis
Where’s Vermont’s F & W empirical “study” on precisely how many hounds are owned and/or utilized by every “recreational” hounders who relentlessly & tenaciously taunt, pursue, and corner wild creatures mercilessly as the targets flee for their lives trailed by these scent & sight hounds? How did you arrive at your definitive conclusion that owning six or more dogs is far too great of an expense for anyone in VT to possess? Yes, “empirical” evidence goes both ways, I’m afraid.
Further, beavers in the town of Pownal have historically been shot on sight directly into their wetlands from along the side of a roadway by employees of the Pownal Highway Department. Legal? No. Reality? Yes. I have been an eyewitness on a number of occasions. Good thing the animals in question are not looked upon as vermin though. Imagine the circumstances then.
Oh Brenna……we’ve been doing it this way here for a long time and if you notice all your creatures of concern are still here, likely at higher levels then the place from which you came, where more people share your emotionally driven mindset regarding hunting and trapping. Regardless, you certainly have the right to state your opinion as do we have the right to react as we see fit.
She does indeed have a right to her opinion, and with that right to an opinion comes the right to be wrong, and when that “opionon” is intentionally wrong….. there’s a word for that…….
“perhaps Vermont Fish & Wildlife and the Governor will finally recognize the importance of working meaningfully with wildlife advocates. They have been working meaningfully with wildlife advocates.with. Hunters, fishermen, and trappers. How much money have charlitians like POW actually spent on perpetuating wildlife populations ? Their version of that is to allow it to take care of itself, you know a “natural balance” where starvation, disease, and predation keep populations in check . Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you go back to where you came from and try this there. ? What ? They don’t want you there either ? The dickens you say !
“Opinions” can’t be properly defined as either right or wrong. Facts can be found wrong, but what supposed “facts” are you referring to that might prove Ms. Galdenzi wrong, how are they wrong, and what are your purported credible sources & references and/or what peer-reviewed national/international research are you using to determine she is therefore “wrong”?
Animals have rights as all living beings have rights to life – which is precisely the reason, for but one example, why Trump’s administration shut down the NIH Intramural Research Program last year involved in killing tens of thousands of adult & juvenile Beagle dogs over the course of decades. It’s the exact same reason why humane associations exist & why people charitably contribute billions of dollars annually to them, and why international conservation legislation & laws originate, and organizations exist that have aid wild & domestic animals in all capacities.
As far as “going back to where they belong” – while you once again unmask your usual insular and provincial attitudes about your lack of knowledge of:
1.) US Constitution & its rights of freedom of movement & residency
2.) VT Constitution and its rights of same
3.) your abject lack of either comprehension or acknowledgement of the fact that you don’t “belong” in Vermont one iota more than any other US citizen,
4.) the fact that you don’t know that POW exists within a multitude of states & not just VT, and has been highly successful in changing archaic & cruel practices that directly cause danger, immense suffering, and/or death to critical species, endangered species, and to domestic animals across this country
5.) Public approval of hunting/trapping has declined significantly across the states (including within VT) as per: Nat Geo ’24, Outdoor Life ’23 & numerous other sources including the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation.
The trappers in VT and elsewhere are the minority and God created nature to sustain itself as it has rather successfully in accordance with His plan for the ages – He never required a group of rabid trappers engaged in brutal bloodlust that was responsible for the vanquish of the Wolf or the Cougar or other natural native predators from this Green Mountain State in order to “balance” anything. It is men who alone are responsible for any imbalances that exist due to their often disordered and inhumane propensities to catch, torture, and leave for dead innocent animals much like the fairly recent bloodbath that was called in to VT law enforcement by a “native” Pownal man after discovering a trail of dozens of suffering, dying, & deceased trapped wildlife set by a voracious “recreational” trapper in southern VT who was subsequently charged – or another pet dog named Yanu ensnared in a trap in southern VT & seriously injured – both stories Bennington Banner archives / 2023.
Perhaps trappers ought to “go back from whence they came” – I hear Ireland could be one option………
Ha!! Been wondering what took her so long to start up her attacks on us again. As I’ve said before..I don’t care if there are 10 hunters and trappers left in VT. We have the right to enjoy the rights sportsmen and women have had for generations. These organizations will not succeed in putting a stop to that. Vermont has too strong a respect for our heritage..It’s even protected in our state Constitution. Oh..and I don’t believe her “statistics” on hunting participation. I’m seeing plenty of young people getting introduced to hunting and fishing!
My consistent concern is that Brenna Gladenzi and POW constantly play to the heartstrings of social media followers. They extrapolate, manipulate and misrepresent information, taking it out of context so that the viewer is forced to react because what is presented is so appalling or offensive. This is by intent.
It offends me too, because it is misinformation. And the majority of viewers don’t know a damn thing about wildlife, habitat, carrying capacity, wildlife management science, reproduction or disease. They see baby animals who are scared. They see coyotes hanging til they rot (not something I approve). They see a few of the rotten apples acting like jerks while wearing camo that spoil the whole barrel of the most hunters.
Any person or organization that must rely on manipulation to make their point, is corrupt and dishonest.
I’m a native Vermonter and avowed conservative. I’m a staunch supporter of gun rights and hunting rights. I hate the leghold trap. Shooting prey is quick and relatively painless. Leghold traps are cruel and tortuous and should be outlawed. For those so inclined, no amount of name-calling or derision will change my mind or the facts.