AR-News: Poor put-upon trappers in Oregon may have to check traps every 48 hours

[jim robertson]

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/107598626953210.xml

Animal trappers may face stricter state rules

The Fish and Wildlife Commission is considering trap-checking regulations 
that could hurt certain businesses

02/05/04

BRYAN DENSON

WALTON -- Standing on a slope in the coastal mountains west of Eugene this 
week, Bob Gilman watched four of his young workers climb through the 
clear-cut canyon below checking steel traps. The crew was counting dead 
rodents called boomers -- and in the crew's line of work, dead boomers are 
the only good ones.

The crew moved between clusters of hot-pink streamers that mark the boomers' 
living quarters. A few weeks ago, workers set hundreds of traps in the holes 
that serve as the rodents' foyers.


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The toothy boomer, technically known as a mountain beaver, is the bane of 
infant trees because it browses on saplings. That's a problem for timber 
companies such as Roseburg Forest Products, which hopes to replant the 
clear-cut above Walton. The companies hire Gilman and other trappers.

The economic future of Gilman's enterprise could be in jeopardy. The Oregon 
Fish and Wildlife Commission will meet Friday to consider rules that might 
require trappers to check their traps more frequently.

State law is vague on how often they must check traps set for nuisance 
animals such as coyotes, rabbits, nongame birds and rodents such as the 
boomer. But the law is firm on those who trap animals such as mink for their 
fur: They must check traps every 48 hours.

Animal welfare groups favor the 48-hour rule for those who trap predators.

Kelly Peterson, a spokeswoman for the Northwest office of the Humane Society 
of the United States, thinks it's cruel to let animals such as coyotes sit 
for days after being snared or caught in nonlethal leg-hold traps. Some of 
those suffering animals, she said, are eaten alive by other animals.

"We're willing to accept 48 hours," said Peterson, who will testify before 
the commission. "We feel the most humane (requirement) is 24 hours. . . . If 
someone is going to take the time to set a trap out, the least they can do 
is come back and check that trap as quickly as possible, eliminate the 
suffering."

Many states require trappers such as Gilman to check their traps every 24 to 
36 hours. Oregon is the only Western state without a specific trap-check 
standard for predators, said Bob Sallinger, urban conservation director for 
the Audubon Society of Portland.

"Oregon stands alone," said Sallinger, whose group cites four examples of 
red-tail hawks caught in leg-hold traps in the past eight months.

Traps such as Gilman's, which are designed to kill quickly, trouble 
Sallinger because they sometimes kill untargeted animals such as rabbits and 
pack rats. "Agricultural folks and livestock producers do have real issues 
(with pests). We also need to put that in perspective and understand that 
wildlife has a value as well."

Gilman views a trap-check requirement as afflicting his pocketbook rather 
than sparing the suffering of wildlife. The veteran trapper said he could 
easily predict what would happen were he forced to pay his workers to check 
traps every 48 hours.

"It would," he said, "put us out of the boomer trapping business."

The purpose of a trap-check requirement is to prevent animals from 
suffering, he said, but most of the boomers he catches in the jaws of his 
steel traps die instantly. He said there's a vast difference between that 
kind of trap and those that hold animals' legs until a trapper comes along 
to kill them.

Gilman said his crew typically checks traps three times during the course of 
its 30-day boomer contracts, a schedule he finds reasonable.

Duane Zentner concurs. The forester for Roseburg Forest Products, which pays 
for Gilman's services, said the price increase that would follow a 48-hour 
trap-check policy would force his company to bow out of trapping boomers.

"It would be very devastating," he said. "The boomers would essentially make 
Swiss cheese of our (tree) stocking levels. We would lose 30 to 60 percent 
of our land base."

When the Fish and Wildlife Commission meets Friday morning during the 
Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show at the Portland Expo Center, the 
seven-member panel will consider a range of options for trap-check 
requirements, commissioner Marla Rae said.

"I expect that we will have a fair amount of public testimony," she said. 
"Where the commission goes with this will depend on what we hear on Friday. 
Will there be something new? I don't know."


Bryan Denson: 503-294-7614; bryandenson at news.oregonian.com




"I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
Albert Einstein

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