Anti-Trapper’s Challenge Accepted

When Marc Folco, an outdoor writer for Massachusett’s Standard Times newspaper, saw a challenge from an anti-trapping reader earlier this month, he accepted. And it was a victory for trappers.

The reader, Dawn White, or Acushnet, Mass., wrote into the newspaper in opposition to the movement to remove the ban on trapping in the state. The letter was published on Dec. 14. Here is an excerpt:

Here we go again with the call to bring back trapping. Did we forget
that the people of Massachusetts voted to ban this cruel and inhumane
practice? And it should stay banned — permanently!

But she didn’t stop there. She issued a challenge to the state’s trappers:

If these so-called rubber-jaw traps are painless (letter, “Bring back
trapping to control coyotes,” Sept. 11
), or any trap for that matter, I
want to see a trapper put his hand in one. Let’s see how much it
doesn’t hurt.

That got Falco’s attention:

This outdoor writer is not a trapper, but he is a hunter and
conservationist and knowledgeable enough about trapping to accept the
challenge and demonstrate that the traps truly are humane and not the
heinous devices purported by the animal rights drama queens. So I got a
coyote-size rubber-padded trap and went to The Standard-Times office to
have the demonstration filmed by S-T videographer Nick Tavares.

And here’s the predictable result:

 

It’s not nearly as painful as slamming your fingers in a car door and
not even as painful as pulling a hair out of your nose. I didn’t have
the urge to chew my arm off and it’s been six days since then and no
gangrene has set in and I have not starved to death, debunking the
myths and misinformation that they are cruel and inhumane. And while my
hand was in the trap nobody said, “let’s get him,” and came to attack
me.

(A hat tip to Wildlife Control Supplies Blog for WCO’s for leading me to the story and video)

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