After the accidental trapping death of a Canada lynx in northern Maine on November 17th, in the midst of a lawsuit by environmentalists aimed at halting trapping, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has adopted new regulations to avoid another such incident.
You can see the photo below, provided to the media by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It appears that the trap was actually set legally, according to the way that the regulations were worded. Regulations at the time of the incident stated that these traps (conibears) needed to be set a minimum of 4 feet off the ground on a tree less than 4 inches in diameter, standing at a minimum of a 45 degree angle from the ground. Looking at the photo, the set is legal by the books, but common sense-wise, it’s a terrible set because of its proximity to the large cedar tree. The lynx obviously climbed up the large cedar tree and stuck its paw into the trap, trying to get to the bait in the box. The real ironic thing about this whole situation is that if the set had been legal to make on the ground, the lynx would have been alive at the set and could have been released. The apparent reason it died is that it couldn’t get down to the ground and was left hanging from the tree. The bugger just had to find a way to die, didn’t he? Honestly, it looks like a suicide attempt! But all kidding aside, this is a serious issue.
Regardless of how odd and unlikely an event, the animal was killed, and the Department, with orders from the Federal Judge, has issued emergency regulations to avoid such a situation in the future. Tom Remington, at the Black Bear Blog, lists the specific regulations now in place.
· The trap must be at least four feet away from any bank (new);
· The trap must be affixed to a pole or tree that is no greater than 4 inches in diameter at 4 feet above the ground or snow level;
· If a pole is used, the pole must be a natural selection of tree, with or without bark, the sides of which have not been sawed, planed or otherwise altered to create a flat surface (new);
· The pole or tree to which the trap is affixed must be at an angle of 45-degrees or greater to the ground (old) the entire distance from the ground to the trap (new);
· The area within 4 feet of the trap in all directions must be free of trees, poles or other objects greater than 4 inches in diameter and must be free of all trees or poles that are slanted at an angle of less than 45 degrees to the ground at any point between the ground and the height of the trap (new);
Also newly added to the rule is a statement of its purpose, namely that conibear or killer-type traps are not to be placed in the vicinity of objects that make it easier for lynx to access the trap.
Now if you thought the trapping regulations are complicated enough, think about how difficult it will now be to find a situation where all of these requirements are met. This is exactly what anti-trappers want. More confusing regulations make it tougher for new people to get into trapping, and tougher for experienced trappers to remain effective. Anything that makes trapping more difficult is (in their opinion) a step toward making it obsolete. And of course, the anti trapping community is only opposing these regulations because they think that all trapping should be banned, and the regs allow for trapping to continue. Here’s an anti quote from the Kennebec Journal article:
“We believe the emergency rules are a farce,” said Camilla Fox of the Animal Welfare Institute. “I know of no other state that has such complicated regulations regarding Conibear traps. And if the trappers were perplexed by the (prior) regulations, they will be utterly confused now.”
Of course no other state has such complicated regulations, Camilla!!! That’s because you haven’t YET been to the other states with these ridiculous lawsuits to end trapping as we know it! Minnesota, the other major state facing trapping lawsuits, has trapping regulations that are borderline as complicated as Maine’s due to these legal challenges.
I wish these people would just leave trappers alone! Ruining our way of life is not going to save Canada lynx, and they know it. The frustrating thing is that all of the scientific evidence points to no significant impact of trapping on lynx populations. If wildlife management decisions were based on science, we wouldn’t be in this mess, and Maine’s trapping regulations would not have needed to be changed.
The Canada lynx population is very healthy in northern Maine. Heck, guys can’t seem to keep them out of their traps. What does that tell you? We’re dealing with a species that does not need federal protection, a species that is at the southern edge of its range in Maine, and can be legally trapped just across the border in Canada.
This causes a huge dilemma. We are in a situation where a species was listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act, when in fact its population was healthier than it has probably ever been, and in no need of protection. The Endangered Species Act requires that a species be recovered before it becomes delisted and removed from federal protection.
So the big question is, how do you recover a species that was never in need of recovery to begin with? Lynx were listed with little to no population data available, so we don’t have a level at which the population was ‘threatened’, and we don’t have a level at which we would consider the lynx to be ‘recovered’. A species can only exist at densities relative to its habitat. Beyond this, it becomes overpopulated and natural population control measures, such as starvation and increased predation, reduce it to healthier levels. We have already seen this happen with lynx in Maine. State research has identified starvation as the number one cause of lynx deaths, and also identified predation from other animals as a problem.
Now a person with common sense might ask the question, “Why are we letting the lynx population go through these boom and bust cycles and seeing lynx starve to death, doing everything we can to avoid taking them in a trap, when we could allow trappers to harvest a small surplus of these animals and produce a valuable fur resource?”
I honestly don’t know the answer to this question. Ask the animal rights folks. Ask those who supported the listing of the Canada lynx as a ‘threatened’ species in the first place. It makes no biological sense, and if we ever want to see lynx ‘recovered’, we better start thinking about huge political action, because the way I see it, a species inappropriately listed can’t possibly be delisted based on actual science.
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