I’d like to offer a few points related to last month’s front-page beaver story.

By law all pets (except hunting dogs) must be on a leash on state land. Trappers avoid public trails and well-used areas. Seeing as the two beaver liberationists went well over 100 yards off the trail to a place they had no reason to be, it was their fault and not the trapper’s for setting his traps where they could be just happened upon. Trappers go to great lengths to dog-proof their sets. Sets are made very species specific, with scents and lures chosen to be inviting to the targeted species alone. Trapping has gone on in that swamp every year for generations. The fact that there isn’t a long list of injuries to people or pets speaks volumes about how good trappers are at taking precautions.

The large population of beavers needs to be controlled. Leghold traps, designed to grab and hold, not to cut or break bone, are a useful tool that must be available if trappers are to do their job effectively.

So in the end, “liberation” should be replaced with what it truly was—larceny, vandalism, and harassment. After all, a trapper was hired to do a job and set a perfectly legally trapline. People went out of their way to steal his catch and gear, then destroy his equipment. A sad shame.

Frank Christinat

In the interest of precision, the article’s author points out that the traps were a horizontal distance of 70 yards from the trail, and anyone walking the trail along the top of the dam would have had a clear view of the struggling beaver. —Ed.