by Will Staats
The recent decision by LCAR on the proposed rules for trapping and hunting coyotes with hounds leaves much to be desired and calls into question where the real motive lies behind this unfortunate outcome.
Clearly this has been a process fraught with implicit bias, emotion and misinformation and driven by groups with time, plenty of money and undue influence. LCAR’s requirement that coyote hounds would need to be confined to a leash during a hunt is symptomatic of how this process resulted in a decision that runs counter to the legislative intent of the original bill.
This is a totally unrealistic imposition on hunters and is simply designed as an end run to achieve what the anti-hunting factions desired – a total and outright ban on this activity. This was never the intent of this legislation, and this decision represents a failure to have a fair and unbiased process.
There is no compromise here. This is not a reasonable and sensible law designed to mitigate real or perceived problems with this activity but instead has simply resulted in a total and outright permanent moratorium on this type of hunting.
To be clear I do not hunt coyotes with hounds. However, I am a wildlife biologist who has relied on hounds to achieve wildlife research goals and mitigate human wildlife conflicts. I also own three beautiful lovable hounds that I use during the winter season to track bobcats.
What is of grave concern is the precedent this decision may set for all hunting dogs and equally disconcerting represents yet another attempt by so-called wildlife advocacy groups to chip away at our hunting culture. But this is what the anti-hunting groups have sought all along.
It is instructive to review some of the misinformation that likely contributed to LCAR’s flawed decision. In a recent letter written by an animal behavioralist the writer attempts to describe hunting dog behavior. It is abundantly clear that the author does not understand hunting dogs, hunting dog behavior nor the process of hunting with dogs.
As a wildlife biologist I have been involved with animal behavior and hunting dogs for over 40 years and the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in this letter reveal ignorance and obvious unscientific bias regarding this management tool and hunting methodology.
While I won’t address each of the erroneous points in this letter it attempts to paint a picture of dogs gone wild and uncontrollable driven by a blood thirsty fever beyond any human recall and “impossible to control”. Were that the case, we never could have used these highly trained dogs in our research efforts. Nor would we ever be able to retrieve our dogs during or after a hunt.
In the author’s mind our dogs are caged up all year until released on game. But for every hound owner I know their hunting dogs are part of the family. Each spring my hounds and I walk over 300 miles together searching for moose antlers in the mountains and they are my constant companions throughout the year.
This letter makes the baseless claim that dogs cannot distinguish one animal from another, which is simply untrue. Our hounds hunt by scent and not sight which allows them to be trained to a specific quarry. My hounds and the hounds I have used for research are specifically trained to pursue only the desired species identified by scent only. They are driven by the ability to distinguish the smell of their quarry at the exclusion of all other animals in the woods.
During a typical day hunting in the winter my dogs will cross dozens of animal tracks ranging from fisher to moose, all of which they pay no attention to.
Interestingly the author defends rabbit dogs. This can only be considered blatant speciesism. I guess hares, considered a “Keystone” species by biologists and ecologists, don’t rise to the stature of bears and coyotes. This is ignorant of the fact that some hare hunters now breed beagles with bigger hounds resulting in longer legged dogs that can negotiate the deep snow more effectively.
The author grasps at anything that will paint a portrait of blood thirsty dogs running uncontrollably through the Vermont woods. My dogs and the hounds that I have worked with for decades are among the most easy-going friendly dogs you will ever meet. I would challenge the author to compare statistics of dog attacks by breed and I suspect it would reveal that many breeds of domestic pets have a far worse behavioral track record than hounds. If my hounds jump up at you, it’s to lick you out of love!
The author continues to cite the two isolated incidents that occurred several years ago in Central Vermont. These incidents, while unfortunate and traumatic for all involved, are far from the norm and represent a tiny fraction of the thousands of hunts that occur each year.
No one was bitten, however, and in both instances involved an altercation between a domestic dog and the hounds. In 40 years of working with hunting dogs these two episodes are the only instances in Vermont I have ever heard of!
My dogs have never attacked a farm animal, a bobcat-colored dog, or other dog breeds that look like bears (a ridiculous supposition) or inflicted any property damage whatsoever. We hunt remote swamps and bogs in the Northeast Kingdom during the winter generally far from any other human or human habitation and I typically snowshoe some 400-500 miles a winter following my dogs. We bother no one.
What isn’t acknowledged is how hunters want and need to know exactly what their dogs are doing at all times. We love our dogs and care about their welfare.
Today we are lucky to have advanced technology that records where the dogs are and what they are doing. GPS tracking and training collars are in effect an “electronic leash” that is safe, effective and allows control over hounds unlike what I have witnessed with household pet dogs that do far more damage to wildlife, property and occasionally bodily injury. We can call dogs off game that is in a tree or on the ground with this tool and do so when we desire to terminate the hunt.
GPS allows us to view a real time map on the control unit which records exactly where the dogs are, where they have been, and the direction they are going.
On the rare occasion that we temporarily lose satellite coverage the map recorded in real time on the GPS enables hunters to rapidly move to the last recorded location and quickly reestablish direct communication with the dogs. Rarely have I used the electrical training stimulus feature on these units but instead our dogs are trained to respond to an audible tone which is used to call them from entering places where they should not be or that is potentially harmful to the dog including thin ice, busy highways, private property, dangerous ledges.
GPS tracking collars saves time, gas and occasionally the lives of our dogs and have proven a very effective technology for our wildlife research. They have proven to be an indispensable tool and virtually all hunters owning hounds now use them and would not consider hunting without this technology.
The anti-hunters love to troll social media to find the worst of the worst examples of all kinds of hunting. But they don’t point to the recent video featured on YouTube showing bear hunters immediately calling off their dogs from private property with the aid of GPS tracking collars.
I sincerely wish legislators would take the time to listen to those of us that have used these dogs for a lifetime. But sadly, it is apparent that some members of LCAR turned a deaf ear to the hunting dog owners of this state who are the only ones that possess first-hand knowledge of how this process works.
The inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation that continues to be perpetuated by the anti-hunting groups has created an atmosphere of fear among the hunting community and has prevented any useful or meaningful debate. The constant barrage of hate mongering directed at hunters has created a hostile environment and a real and present danger for hunters here in Vermont. We have been threatened, verbally abused, our tires slashed and physically assaulted!
Vermont Fish and Wildlife Biologists have been ridiculed, marginalized, bullied, sent horrific degrading emails and have expressed concern for their own personal safety while attending public meetings due to the presence of certain intimidating anti hunters.
Yet VTFW biologists are the hard-working dedicated experts that we pay to safeguard our wildlife. Are the anti-hunting groups somehow more qualified to manage our wildlife resources?
So where does this end? Will all hunting dogs be required to use a leash during an active hunt? Will this include bird dogs which are often out of sight of the hunter? Rabbit dogs? Retrievers used for waterfowl hunting?
In the minds of the anti-hunters, it’s clear where they want it to end. They will never be satisfied until all hunting dogs are banned from the woods. That hunting in all its forms end. They have made clear that hunting with dogs and trapping are “low hanging fruit” in their crusade. Next will be bow hunting, then moose hunting, and the rest will follow. This is not hyperbole on my part or fear mongering. They have signaled this time and time again.
Let’s be clear, the anti-hunting community stands to lose nothing if further restrictions are imposed on hunting dogs. But Vermont men and women who hunt with dogs will lose their ability to secure wild food, the ability to hunt as a family, to lose their beloved dogs, to lose their very way of life. Their right to interact with the natural world in their own way.
Vermont touts its remarkable tolerance for all cultures, and I am proud of my state and embrace this philosophy entirely. But for some reason this philosophy has failed to extend to our hunting and trapping culture.
I am proud to be a hunter and trapper. Our VTFW department and Vermont hunters and trappers are the real advocates for wildlife. Hunters and trappers have collectively given billions of dollars to wildlife conservation. Let’s stop this outright assault on Vermont’s hunting culture and work together to achieve meaningful protection for our wildlife resources by protecting the remaining wildlife habitat in our state. I would urge LCAR to reconsider their decision, listen to hunters and their own VTFW experts and take a much more sensible and balanced approach to the issue of hunting dogs.
The author is a wildlife biologist and woodsman living in Victory, Vermont. This letter was sent to the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR).