by Guy Page
The Senate Natural Resources Committee will take testimony and likely vote this week on S.258, a bill that would seize rule-making power from the pro-hunting/fishing/trapping Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board and give it to the Department of Fish & Wildlife.
Under S.258, sponsored by Sen. Chris Bray (D-Addison) and chair of the committee, Fish & Wildlife would have an advisory role only – and thus would be unable to repeat its staunch, effective, opposition in December to the Legislature’s recent attempt to restrict coyote hunting and trapping. The bill also would expand the policy-making role of ‘non-consumptive’ users of the outdoors. It also would prohibit hunting coyote with bait and dogs.
S.258 would “transfer the authority to adopt rules for the taking of fish, wildlife, and fur-bearing animals from the Fish and Wildlife Board to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The bill would also amend the authority of the Fish and Wildlife Board so that it serves in an advisory capacity to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. (Also, the bill would prohibit the hunting of coyote with dogs, a provision supported by the San Francisco Bay Area Project Coyote.)
The bill is cosponsored by Sens. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison) and Windsor County Sens. Richard McCormack and Rebecca White. Both Addison and Windsor County are extremely ‘blue’ counties whose voters include many college students and employees – Dartmouth College (located across the river from Windsor County) and Middlebury College.
Testimony will occur Tuesday morning and Wednesday, with a committee vote likely Thursday or Friday. Wildlife biologist Will Staats and other trapping advocates are urging supporters of hunting/fishing/trapping to appear in person at the scheduled hearings. See the Senate Natural Resources Committee schedule here.
At least three other bills in the Legislature would create laws designed to restrict trapping:
| S.111 | Ban on all but ‘nuisance’ trapping. Sponsored by Sen. Brian Campion (D-Bennington) and others, this bill would prohibit the trapping of fur-bearing animals unless the person trapping is authorized to trap in order to defend property or agricultural crops or the trapping is conducted by a licensed nuisance wildlife control operator. The bill would establish a nuisance wildlife trapping license. | |
| H.191 | A House ‘companion’ bill to S.111, similar in language. Sponsored by Rep. Larry Satkowitz (D-Randolph). | |
| H.485 | Prohibit the use of leghold traps, sponsored by Satkowitz and Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (D-Westminster). |
Meanwhile, the Vermont Trapping Association has released a Vermont-based, professionally produced video entitled “Trappers: Stewards of the Wild.” It makes its case for the human and environmental benefits of trapping.
“The injustices created by misinformation from those with an anti-trapping agenda are well documented. This film is a fresh opportunity for the public to learn how Trappers serve science and the communities they live in, mitigate disease and human-wildlife conflicts and maintain healthy furbearer populations,” a Vermont Trappers Association statement accompanying the video said.
“This valuable documentary comes at a critical point in the history of Vermont’s outdoor community. People often misunderstand trapping, and improving public awareness has never been more important. By informing fellow citizens of the leading role trappers play in everything from assisting our neighbors to informing our state’s biologists, we hope to help you see the value this small but important set of Vermonters play in the mosaic of our shared landscape,” the VTA said.
This video was forwarded to VDC by Sen. Terry Williams (R-Rutland).
“Trapping is one of our constitutionally guaranteed traditions, freedoms and rights here in Vermont. You may be surprised at some of the people interviewed in this film,” Williams said. “Hunting, trapping and the shooting sports are under attack (legally, with your tax dollars) every day in Vermont.”
Williams said trapping is a form of hunting, although the opponents have tried to say that it is not. It is safeguarded, time-honored tradition because of the Vermont Constitution’s guarantee:
“The inhabitants of this State shall have liberty in seasonable times, to hunt and fowl on the lands they hold, and on other lands not inclosed, and in like manner to fish in all boatable and other waters (not private property) under proper regulations, to be made and provided by the General Assembly.”
“I like our Vermont constitution just as it is written and do not support the attempts to open it up for change as our opponents are attempting to do. There are currently four proposals for change of our Vermont constitution in legislation right now,” Williams said.
The VTA has provided time-stamps for each chapter of the video.
00:00 – Intro – Trappers: Stewards of the Wild
01:07 – Chapter 1- Family
03:41 – Chapter 2 – Sustainability
07:00 – Chapter 3 – Misconceptions & Harassment
11:27 – Chapter 4 – Injustice & Cultural Practices
19:35 – Chapter 5 – Science & Regulations
24:32 – Chapter 6 – Population & Disease Control
28:39 – Chapter 7 – Habitat Reduction & Wildlife Conflict
31:48 – Chapter 8 – Heritage
33:45 – Ending – How You Can Help
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Categories: Legislation, Outdoors
I don’t like vagueness. Combining all “hunting and trapping” into a right that must be preserved at all costs is vague and also unreasonable. For the good of the state, not to mention the animals, some nuanced thinking is required here. The one specific thing that should be banned is METAL leghold traps. Take a lesson from the Native Americans: I’m sure they trapped animals in a way that was efficient and humane: probably a leather thong and then a quick dispatch of the creature. I do not have hunting expertise. My expertise is in the field of public relations (dad had an international PR firm and I work on my own for select clients). The use of metal leghold traps in Vermont may contribute to an “image problem” that only gives outsiders an excuse to come in and change things. The visuals of an animal chewing its leg off to get free of a trap, or a three-legged cat or dog who had the misfortune to step into one, is not what we want to project, especially when the Democrats are already foaming at the mouth to ethnic cleanse Old Vermont by financial death of 1,000 cuts. Trophy hunting and hunting education are good, especially when your guide is one of the many skilled marksmen, including military veterans, who reside in this area. Win–win all round.
A Constitutional guaranty isn’t vague. It is codified law. Ch.2 Section 67 of The Vermont Constitution. And you can be assured that “native Americans” used steel traps after they were commercially available in the 1820’s- their use was more “efficient”. This entire region had a strong fur trade beginning in the 1600’s, with Henry Hudson and later the Hudson Bay Company. Trapping currently may have an “image problem”, however this legislation is a veiled attempt to seize control over hunting and fishing regulation by a select elitist group of legislators, whom aren’t real keen on traps, guns, declared rights or the Vermont Constitution. Trapping and hunting is objectionable to this group- and with the current power they believe they yield, they intend to take control over another Vermont tradition.
Ms. Anderson (I do hope I have that correctly)
I wonder if I might ask a question. Are you assuming Native Americans used only leather thongs? Or similar devices? Is the use of leather somehow more humane than metal? If so, how is that? Qualitatively.
Ostensibly, leather can be chewed through easily by a trapped animal. Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of setting a trap? How then did Native Americans trap animals?
I think it would be better if we asked questions and became curious followed by researching and learning and then we would be better informed before we jump up and make statements which may or may not be true. See, I don’t know the answer and I don’t have the desire to research the answer. But the questions still popped up in my mind when I read your comment. So that is why I am asking.
And please don’t take this as an affront. I am simply asking questions. I am guilty myself of forgetting to be curious first, ask questions, before I move straight into my opinion. I have to ask myself or I should say, correct myself frequently of this behavior.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Vagueness in laws, esspecially older ones, are quite often because in bygone days the thought that, for instance, the regulation of firearms used for hunting, would have been unthinkable as everyone hunted to eat. Only the richest could afford to buy their meat, or vegtables. Likewise trapping was, and still is considered to be a form of hunting no different than the act of harvesting prey by bullet, or arrow. Is a fish hook a trap ? Long before Europeans came to the North American continent, natives were using traps to catch animals, and fish. Snares were ubiquitously used by most if not all native americans to catch game. Eskimos used whalebone nooses to snare waterfowl, the Hopis used dead-fall rock slabs to kill fox and Aleutian Indians used barbed spikes to catch bears.
I’ve tried to explain so many times to people, that I’m not sure why I even try anymore. Foothold traps (NOT leghold) set properly, with swivels hold the animal by its toes or paw, the swivels allow the animal to move without twisting out of the trap or wrenching its appendages. I have found foxes and fishers curled up sleeping while being held in a foothold. The law states that traps must be checked at least every 24 hours (for land traps, 72 for under water) any animal that may chew its own leg off would be an animal dying of dehydration or starvation…this doesn’t happen in 24 hours. Trappers I have found are very respectful of nature and their prey.
Just looking at the sponsors of S.258 should inform the reader of the true intent of the legislation. To render the Fish & Wildlife Board “advisory only” puts Fish and Wildlife under the boot of these four cultural marxist legislators and the rest of Vermont’s elitists. For those that do not currently trap, hunt coyote or hunt with dogs- this is the final step in full legislative control over ALL hunting and fishing in Vermont. The legislature will be going after large and small game next, then fishing.
Perhaps you’d prefer mr. bray dictating management of the deer herd or our fisheries- he has a degree in zoology and can teach English to us. Or- someone like ms. hardy regulating the deer herd in Vermont- she could use the same failed policies as Ithaca NY, where she moved here from… Unfortunately, attempts to sway mr. bray and ms. hardy by mere peasants still go unanswered.
Bingo Frank ! Ahh for the good old days when people like Gino Sassi, and Amerigo “Matt” Galley aspired to the Fish and Game Committee to ensure that their constituents voices were heard, not just the voices of out of state anti hunting lobbing groups with the big bucks!
Mr. Bammo,
I would like build on part of your sentence, “…this is the final step in full legislative control over ALL hunting and fishing in Vermont.” And I would posit that next control is the ability to raise livestock for your own consumption. Meat chickens and turkeys, pigs, beeves, sheep, and goats come to mind. I personally believe that is where this is heading. Indeed, Ms. Christine Stone has repeatedly, amongst other commenters, talked about the global organizations that wish to control us in a variety of ways. And we all know just how much our legislature is in love with the global Great Reset.
While I am not a fan per se of hunting or trapping, or fishing for that matter it’s not for the reasons one might think. I don’t have the patience for any of it. But I have read about it and watched many videos on the practice and talked with several trappers and hunters.
And the only “image problem” we have is the uneducated people making decisions and forming opinions about things for which they are clueless about. As USUAL.
More specifically to my personal situation is that this would limit my ability to move pest animals away from my livestock in a humane manner. This would force me to exterminate them. Or make a criminal out of me. One of the two.
Just a few thoughts this afternoon….
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Hiya Pam, Not Mark here, however I would be happy to provide an answer to your non-consumptive query coming from a person who is opposed to trapping in light of the hundreds of thousands of non-targeted species, endangered species, and domestic pets they kill annually on a national basis with this state included in the federal stats. The stats and the data were already posted by me over the last handful of months on VDC and can be obviously located easily. They were compiled, in part, by the federal government and the states.
Since I’ve been a homeowner. I personally have contributed in excess of two hundred thousand dollars to the public school system which my children have never spent a day attending. Talk about being non-consumptive? The state and the federal government, through the tax system, dont structure ones tax base based upon personal usage. If the government did, virtually none of our departments would be properly funded.
On another note however, rodents have been part of our ecosystem since the advent of time and are here to stay whether trapping ensues or doesn’t. However, there are a number of natural methods of pest control that can be employed by homeowners and farmers to keep pests at bay – organic farmers in VT particularly use them routinely.
Ms. Gaffney, while I don’t always agree with everything you comment on or espouse, I have always been respectful of your opinion and would defend your right to say what you believe anyplace, anytime, legal limits notwithstanding. I often agree with your comments. And in that light, I don’t always comment because you have stated your point clearly and passionately and any further comment would detract from your words.
While I appreciate your ferocious passion on the topic of hunting/trapping, (and agree on the entire school tax system, no children to put thru the system), I was commenting to Mr. Mark specifically and just in case you missed it, my comment was tongue in cheek, as it were. So, there was no need to reply to my comment made specifically to Mr. Mark.
My point is I raise livestock. I deal with predation pressures on a weekly basis some months, monthly basis at other times and usually, on a daily basis. We have a small acreage that we are trying to live sustainably, carefully, respectfully and with serious stewardship. I would like us, all citizens, to be careful and cautious about making drastic and radical changes. The unintended consequences of all actions are rarely considered much less attended to until the damage is done. People often vote and comment out of passion (me included) when it would have been better to remain circumspectly quiet. If you apply a rule in one place it very often will be utilized by another group to promote their agenda. My father used to say, “I give you an inch and you take a mile”. I hated that saying as a child, but I now understand precisely what he meant. We have not always been, as a people, very smart about making decisions and can often let logic and reason go by the wayside when doing so.
If you take away the ability to trap, I will be forced to kill the Rodentia/Mustelidae/ Mephitidae or other creatures destroying my food. I don’t like to violate any law or regulation but that is what I will end up having to do if we don’t carefully consider all the ramifications of changes that are being proffered. That is my point, from my perspective, as it pertains to my life.
I appreciate your engagement Ms. Gaffney. Indeed, I welcome it. However, again, my comment was to Mr. Mark.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Kill the bill, leave it under the pro-hunting/fishing/trapping Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board, they are closer to the action and better to monitor it.
The state’s wildlife resources belong to every Vermonter – not only hunters and trappers. The values of non-consumptive users of our wildlife resources need to be respected and considered when making policy. The board, as it is currently structured, can’t do that and it needs to go.
Mr. Mark,
Would you come down to my poultry coops and remove the Rodentia who currently are picking off my turkey’s and chickens for me please since you are so concerned about non consumptive users of our wildlife resources needing to be respected. And while you are at it, would you relocate them or exterminate them according to your experience and opinion please? I know you must have a great deal of experience managing livestock pests and know best how to manage them. And when non consumptive members of our Vermont wildlife resources violate my no trespassing signs and steal artifacts from the ancient cellar hole or around the abandoned graveyard that abuts our property using a metal detector and a shovel or allow their pets to run over my property destroying my livestock enclosures and harassing my livestock, would you go have a discussion with these folks please? Because clearly the non-consumptive Vermonters, who uses state lands and private lands as they see fit are just as honest as can be. And they must be so much more appropriate, like yourself, to manage the wildlife resources that belong to every Vermonter.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Agreed. Such a tax structure is in place throughout the states. And despite whether one hikes, bikes, hunts, jogs, skis, 4 wheels, or traps (trapping accounting for a very small and constantly dwindling minority) the recreational areas, forests, and parks are funded by all residents and all residents have a right to participate in any decision rendering. The same is true for the public school system. Any resident has the right to attend open meeting and have their voices heard regardless of whether they have children enrolled or not.
when the state owns the wild life/// it boils down as who will make the money controlling it/// the vermont constitution///the right to hunt and fish in seasonal times, but the state sets the time, amount taking, the location to hunt, and by a fee///
When is it time to say enough governmental overreach is enough .Call friends ,neighbors family ,coworkers and let’s all say and demand to stop this .We are losing our rights.If it is not something that personally affects you today it will tomorrow. Gas stoves ,car ownership ,hunting ,voting ,medical decisions ,parental rights …… the list is growing everyday .
Below is a post on POW’s web site, made as you can see on 2/9 claiming to have over 3,000 “supporters”. I wonder how many “supporters” the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department/Board have ? I can find on their web site that in 2021 they sold 64,343 licenses, but at this time I do not know if this includes permanent, and lifetime license holders, as we do not “purchase” a license every year anymore. The Dept. representative that I spoke to does not seem to think that it does, but is checking on this for me. Even if we accept the number as incomplete, and work with it as is, 64,343 is very close to 10% of the population of the State of Vermont. (645,570) Now let’s look at the POW’s claim of having 3,000 “supporters”. I don’t know if that means that they have over 3,000 people that donate some unknown amount of money, or are they people that say they support POW’s stance and click on a like button ??? Whatever the case may be, let’s reduce it to the same mathematical formula I did for license holders. 3,000 is .464 of one percent. In what form of government does a faction that controls only .464 of one percent of any concern get more consideration than a concern that has 10% of the constituency ? Need I tell you ? As I stated above, I expect to hear back from the person I contacted at VT. F&W and find out that there are in fact more, possibly many more license holders than that already very lopsided mathematical equation.
“February 9 at 7:33 AM · This recent commentary did an excellent job refuting the constant misinformation being spewed by some in the hunting community.“Unfortunately, the writer mischaracterized the bill as the work of the “radical closet animal rights group called Protect Our Wildlife” (POW). First, POW is not a “closet” group plotting on the dark web. It operates openly with a mission to “make Vermont a more humane place for wildlife” and is supported by over 3,000 Vermonters, including hunters. POW recently held a gathering in Middlebury to discuss its work, which was attended by both hunters and wildlife conservation supporters from around Addison County.”