The poor sportsman and sore losers club at the Massachusetts Committee for Responsible Wildlife Management continue to bemoan the inadequate list of nine exceptions to the beaver-trapping law. They feel burdened by the remarkably simple standards the law requires them to meet. Just to be clear, when any single one of these conditions are met, beavers can be killed in every convenient fashion. However, in the rare instance when no such condition is present, the animals can still be killed, just not with leg hold or body crushing traps. Apparently its toooooooo hard for their little trapper brains to meet a standard and ask permission, (even though I’ve never read even a single story of any request being turned down).
It seems like every 6 months we get new complaints about the awful flooding caused by the increase in beavers in Massachusetts that blames the crazy hippies who were tricked into banning leg hold and body crushing traps in 1996. To these troglodyte minds, the onerous burden of being asked to spend five minutes completing the necessary request is a bridge too far: they won’t stand for it! Now the powerful lobby has attached more exceptions to the exception list in a rider that slipped in at the end of the house session. It sits politely on the governor’s desk with a name like “protecting babies” or “safer streets” to await his unknowing signature. The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is asking residents to call and remind the governor that there are already perfectly adequate lethal solutions in place and we don’t need to add more. Perhaps you’d like to join them.
Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions, who is admirably much more even-handed than I, was interviewed about the story yesterday by CBS channel 3 Springfield. Now this is must see TV!
