STREET TALK
by Chad Harder
Asked Tuesday afternoon on Higgins Avenue in downtown Missoula.
Q:
This week the Independent opines on efforts within the Montana Legislature to overturn voterapproved initiatives. Do you support legislators overriding voter sentiment? Follow-up: If you could overturn one law, what would it be?
Allison Atwood: Well, in general, I’d say no. I mean if the people vote for it, then it’s what we want. Aren’t legislators supposed to represent us? Smoked out: I’d overturn the ban on smoking indoors. Those bastards. It should be a personal choice. If a bar owner wants to allow smoking, fine. And if they don’t, well, that’s fine, too. But they should stop trying to legislate morality.
Brent Gyuricza: Sometimes. I think we have an interesting way of getting things on the ballot, and that sometimes voters don’t necessarily understand what an initiative is about. Pot shot: While I’m not entirely opposed to medical marijuana, I’d put that law at the top of my list. I don’t know that it should be overturned by the Legislature, I’d rather just see it back on the ballot again.
Jean James: I don’t think that’s a good idea. The initiative process is supposed to be a vehicle available for voters to make laws, and we ought to be able to use it, without being overridden. Freeze brain: If it wasn’t freezing out I’d have a better answer, but at the moment I’m less focused on state government and more focused at the federal level. Specifically, our health care situation really, really needs to be improved.
Sonja Skovlin: Well, sometimes voters don’t make the most informed choice, and the hope is that legislators have the time to research an issue and make good decisions. That doesn’t mean it happens though! Nip the bud: They should revamp the medical marijuana law. I mean, I voted for it, but the current situation makes it too accessible to anyone.
Missoula Independent
Inside Letters Briefs Up Front Ochenski Range Agenda News Quirks
Trapping indefensible In “Feeling the Squeeze” (Jan. 27, 2011), trapper David Cronenwett bemoans the lack of “an ethical trapping movement.” Well, that’s because there’s no ethical virtue to recreational and commercial trapping. Torturing, clubbing and stomping innocent animals to death is indefensible. Causing panicked animals to chew off their feet (the norm), or spin until their entire limbs break off and then chew through skin, bone, veins, tissue and muscle to escape to certain death (so common trappers call it a wring-off ) is not defensible. Snaring animals and leaving them for days until their heads fill with liquid is not defensible. This last example trappers call a “jellyhead,” like the mountain lion found in the Bitterroot still alive and strangling in agony after five days in a snare, head big as a balloon, with her dead kits at her feet. Trappers today say anything to obscure the real horror. They “explain” that they are “recycling” when they trap small animals to use as bait for larger ones. And the carcasses they discard like pop bottles are now offerings for “the animal kingdom.” Huh? Animals aren’t trash to be recycled or thrown away. They are living, sentient creatures who suffer a terrifying, slow death for the pleasure of trappers. For every target animal trapped an average of two are discarded. That means 150,000 animals suffer and die this way every year in Montana. This also means that six species are losing their battle for survival: the fisher, pine marten, otter, lynx, wolverine and swift fox. Currently the tiny, sixpound swift fox is being reintroduced—at great taxpayer expense—for the second time while trapping continues. This is not recycling. It’s the wholesale, silent slaughter of our wildlife in the most inhumane way conceivable. Trappers claim they work harder than hunters, and hunters occasionally take bad shots that cause suffering. So what’s the difference? The difference is that with trapping suffering is the rule, not the exception. Hunters track game over long hours and rugged terrain and have our target squarely in our sights when we shoot. We don’t rig a trip-wire rifle over bait and go home. We don’t come back when convenient to see what kind of creature we caught. Trapping is like Christmas, say trappers. They never know what they’ll find. Then there’s the old chestnut that some trapped animals just “kind of lay around until you come up” to stomp on their chests and club them to death. The reality is these animals are in a severe state of shock.
Page 4 February 3–February 10, 2011
Trappers could come to the rescue. Yes, trappers could use their talent and skill to live-trap beaver families where people don’t want them and release them by high mountain streams where they’ll build up water retention and restore wetland ecology and wildlife habitat. Beaver dams are nurseries for all kinds of wildlife from birds to big game. Trappers can make a grand contribution to restoring the rich diversity of the Northern Rockies of the early 19th century, before the wholesale trapping of beaver drained aquifers, turned the land semi-arid and trapped beavers to extinction. By 1841 the land was silent, many
Kill the “tradition”
dispatching a small animal by beating it to death with a stick or stepping on its chest? Trappers boast a “connection to a tradition that has been going on for millenia.” Well, I can think of another “tradition” that went on for many more millennia than trapping, was just as cruel, and was finally abolished by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. Some traditions ultimately are determined by society not to be worthy of continuance. Trapping is on the way to becoming one. About 4,000 trappers purchased licenses in Montana last year. Over 30,000 Montanans signed petitions for I-160, the initiative to ban trapping on public lands. Montanans are overwhelmingly speaking up on the tradition of trapping. According to “Feeling the Squeeze,” trappers are “enjoying dialoguing” with “anti-trapping environmentalists,” now concerned about finding a common ground. Perhaps that common ground could be our public lands, most specifically the safe use of those lands for humans and their pets, but also a respite for the wildlife that sustains all Montanans on many different planes. Oh, but wildlife, apparently we are doing them a favor. If it weren’t for trapping, they would die of starvation, and then, horror of horrors, another animal would eat them. How cruel nature is. And without trapping, they would miss the excitement of being painfully held in a trap waiting to be bludgeoned instead. On pain and suffering: At last we have some admission by trappers, Mike Stevenson among them, that trapping doesn’t occur without suffering. He says: “There is a lot of pain out there, and for us to participate in the reality of the natural world is part of the circle.” Perhaps if he truly wants to participate in the wondrous circle of the natural world he should consider spending a day in a trap, knowing it will be his last. David Cronenwett is correct when he says, “The image of the bloodthirsty, cruel trapper plying his trade in the backcountry must be overcome.” I wholeheartedly agree. My “unassailable ethics” tell me to vehemently oppose this cruel blood sport in the name of “ecology,” the “natural world” and, most of all, compassion. Susie Waldron Kalispell
Trapping, is it economically feasible? By most trappers’ admissions, no (see “Feeling the Squeeze,” Jan. 27, 2011). So what is it really about? Is it anything more than recreational entertainment for Joe Cosley wannabes who feel no remorse at
Correction: In last week’s issue, a photograph showed a Clark’s nutcracker in a foothold trap. The bird was apparently used as bait, not caught accidentally. The Indy regrets the error.
Animals “ aren’t trash to be recycled or thrown away. They are living, sentient creatures who suffer a terrifying, slow death for the pleasure of
”
trappers.
species trapped out of existence. Beavers were gone. In the 1850s they had to be reintroduced in Montana. I have great respect for the survival skills, including trapping, honed by people in earlier times. Today, trappers admit they are lucky to break even. There is no longer a need to trap on public lands. It’s just animal cruelty. Let’s consign this torture to history. Connie Poten Missoula
etters Policy: The Missoula Independent welcomes hate mail, love letters and general correspondence. Letters to the editor must include the writer’s full name, address and daytime phone number for confirmation, though we’ll publish only your name and city. Anonymous letters will not be considered for publication. Preference is given to letters addressing the contents of the Independent. We reserve the right to edit letters for space and clarity. Send correspondence to: Letters to the Editor, Missoula Independent, 317 S. Orange St., Missoula, MT 59801, or via e-mail: editor@missoulanews.com.
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