Talk about bad timing for Maine trappers. Just when it looked like trappers were making headway defending a lawsuit by animal rights groups to ban land trapping in northern Maine, a lynx was reportedly killed in a trap set for other furbearing species this week. The dead lynx will undoubtably be used by animal rights groups to show that Maine’s trapping activities are harming lynx.
Trappers are required to immediately report any captured lynx to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The Department is now investigating the incident, in which the lynx was apparently killed in a conibear trap. Maine law states that these traps, which are humane, quick-killing body grippers, must be set a minimum of four feet off the ground on a pole less than 4″ in diameter and at a minimum 45 degree angle from the ground. These recently adopted regulations are complicating, but make it virtually impossible for a trapper to capture a lynx in a fatal set, while still allowing marten, weasels, and fishers to be caught.
This incident is still under investigation, so we still don’t know if the trap was set legally, or if there was foul play involved. Let’s hope the Department conducts a very thorough investigation before anyone jumps to conclusions. I find it really hard to believe the set was a legal one, but if so, it isn’t good news for trappers since the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife still hasn’t received an Incidental Take Permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
To be issued an incidental take permit, the state has to prove to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the trapping practices it permits minimize the potential to harm lynx, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The permit would allow for the occasional incidental lynx capture without federal consequences.
To me, this lynx kill appears highly suspicious, considering the difficulty for a lynx to get caught in such a trap if set legally following Maine trapping regulations. Because of this, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the lynx was caught in an illegal set, or that environmentalists may have planted the lynx in the trap. Instead of jumping to conclusions, though, we should wait until more information is available.
To put the lynx trapping issue into perspective, the number of confirmed lynx kills in traps over the past decade can be counted on one hand. Far more lynx have been killed in vehicle collisions, and many, many more have died of starvation, which is naturally a high source of mortality, as lynx numbers cycle with their prey base, the snowshoe hare. The state conducts extensive research on lynx, following them throughout the winter. The majority of deaths occur due to starvation, and some are even killed by fishers! Finally, just across the nearly invisible border in Canada, lynx are as common as they are in northern Maine, and are a legal species to trap.
Regardless of actual population status, however, the fact that lynx are listed under the Endangered Species Act, and animal rights groups strongly oppose trapping, may make it difficult for people to continue trapping in northern Maine.
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