Please comment on beaver trapping-
Mike Settel in Pocatello asked us to post an alert to The Wildlife News regarding beaver trapping.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is setting trapping regulations for beaver and other species throughout the state.
Beaver play a very important role in the ecosystem. Their numbers are greatly depleted ever since the time of trapping in the early to late 1800s. Creeks in semi-arid places such most of the Great Basin and Middle Rocky mountains of Eastern and Southern Idaho have shown large changes for the worse over the 120+ year period of beaver depletion. Today’s watersheds store much less water than when Anglo Americans came for this reason and also because of the introduction of livestock. The national forest lands south and west of Pocatello were established in large part to protect and rehabilitate the water supply for Pocatello. Now the local aquifer is declining again due to drought, overgrazing, and pollution of the city’s only aquifer.While The Wildlife News does not condone trapping, these are important issues for many areas around Idaho.
Mike has been working hard to inform people about beaver ecology and actively restore beaver to the streams of SE Idaho. Take a look at the proposals for your area and comment accordingly. Here are Mike’s suggestions for southeast Idaho and you can comment here. Mink Creek, which Mike refers to below, provides about 70% of Pocatello’s only (“sole source”) aquifer. Last summer where beaver had been trapped on Mink Creek (after his attempts to restore them), the Creek ran dry f0r several miles.
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Important Flat-tailer update!! Please comment by January 3rd, 2014 on the new trapping regulations for SE Idaho! In the link below, please do not select any of the proposed alternatives for Mink Creek. Instead, in the “comments” section, please request:
· 30 day extension on the comment period for SE Idaho;
· Close trapping on the South Fork of Mink Creek;
· Reduce the total take to 5 beaver annually for the Mink Creek drainage;Then, in the comments section for the remaining proposals regarding beaver, in the comments sections add:
· Include depredation trapping in controlled trap zone quotas (Do this for all the state wide rule changes proposed) and require the same information on depredation permits as is collected on regular trapping permits;
· Increase the fees for trapping. There has not been an increase in 10 years;
· Limit the number of beaver that any one trapper can take. Currently, it is unlimited. We would like this set to 20;The web comment form is here.
Remember, this rule will last for two years, not one year like most game management rules. Please look at the other trapping rule changes proposed and vote your conscious (e.g. bobcats). Thank you for all you do to help Idaho’s beaver populations!
Mike S.
Comments
Trapping is …. plain inhumane. So is snaring. Hunting on hate & bloodlust is too!
How can Idaho “leaders” be so stupid as to allow this destructive taking of beaver to continue? Politicians will destroy the state’s supply of fresh water for its citizens to make the sick trappers happy? They must have sh-t for brains.
I have written two or three columns about beavers and their life-giving role in the ecosystem. Trout fishermen ignorantly continue to think that beavers warm the water too much for trout – and they and farmers want them wiped out to stock trout and kill farm animals.
The newly rich Asian and Russian markets want the “rich” lifestyle of Americans so they are raping out the wildlife from the United States through Toronto fur markets – the remains of the Hudson Bay Trading company gone international. Trappers can kill as much as they can take.
Present this: Why should trappers who are in BUSINESS for PRIVATE PROFIT be the only people who can go into our public lands and destroy and take as much as they can get for pennies – for private profit in this obscenely cruel way. You or I could not go in and take a living animal or a plant or tree. This is patently undemocratic as is the entire corrupt system.
We need to REPLACE killing licenses with the general public funding that wildlife watchers already bring to state tax coffers ( MUCH MORE THAN HUNTING LICENSES ) and demand fair representation on natural resources boards – and vote OUT legislators who do not stand for that.
There is an excellent web site – Beavers, Wetlands and Wildlife here:http://www.beaversww.org/ This web site and the videos on it should be given to all legislators by a lot of citizens.
My columns about beavers and more links and references are here:
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-rather-than-slaughtering-beaver-we-should/article_9b982d3c-3c47-5f07-9cbd-e4e948653112.html
and
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-life-giving-beavers-deserve-respect/article_912b4437-01cf-5c2f-aa2e-1a2b7463ecf4.html
and
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-rather-than-slaughtering-beaver-we-should/article_9b982d3c-3c47-5f07-9cbd-e4e948653112.html
Thanks for sharing this, Patricia. You are a precious gem for wildlife, wisdom, decency and a loving way forward. Healthy and blessed 2014 to you and those you love. Bob
++ I think the expiration on the ban on semi-automatic weapons back in 2004 really had an impact on the growth of these contests as well as the development of other killing technologies. These contests have the potential to destroy our wildlife as we know it.”++
Read the mining law of 1872, it worst than you think.
Those links led to great information. Thank you for posting. I’m doing my M.S. thesis on wetland rapid assessment, and I work for my tribe doing stream monitoring. Your letters provide great information that I can use, and the beaver website is also something I can reference when doing educational outreach. I’m putting together a lecture on aquatic flora and fauna that I will do as a guest instructor at our tribal college later this month. That beaver website is a good reference for me. Again thanks for posting those links.
I am a trout angler and I like beavers. You are painting with a broad brush to dis the anglers.
Ken or Mike – will they take comments from out of state people seriously?
Nancy-
The IDFG doesn’t seriously consider comments that might cause problems with their revenue stream from in state or out of state citizens.
Wildlife watchers need to follow the lead of organizations like the Idaho Outfitters and Guides association. They are organized, they assess themselves membership fees, and they hire an executive director to lobby and make sure the members show up at IDFG meetings. The newly retired director would show up at the door of any IDFG wolf hunting meeting and hand out a sheet with talking points on it to all of the outfitters and guides so they could all get up in the meetings and essentially demand the same thing: “Kill all of the wolves!!!”
Since they can show that their hunters buy motel rooms and eat at cafes on their way to hunt, they can ask and get funding from the Idaho Department of Commerce to support their activities.($47,769.00 in 2013) This money comes from a tax on motel rooms. Local chambers of commerce get far more than the Outfitters do.
The cattlemen’s association, the woolgrowers,the hunters, the trappers and the ATV owners all follow a similar organizational plan to influence legislation and programs that give them what they want.
Larry,
You are so right! I have been to several Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks commission meetings that had trapping regulations or wolves on the agenda.
There were always a handful of us that wanted changes, but the Montana Trapper’s Association was always out in force. They totally stacked and dominated the meetings with outspoken and assertive/aggressive people. Just their sheer numbers intimidated people with differing views.
The same thing happens at commission meetings in regards to wolf management. I would venture that this member organization carries the day for the trappers & anti-wolf people, especially when influencing a bureaucracy that is predisposed to favor them.
Watch the interactions between FWP personnel and these two groups. It’s enlightening and depressing.
Nancy IMHO, and after reading the comments given to Idaho, I don’t think they do but making the comment provides an administrative record. I think there is value in that. The IDFG does not appear to listen to its constituents just the hunting and anti wolf comments, even when they are clearly a minority. This seems to be the case in MN, MI, MT, and ID. I’ve read and tracked some of those state’s comments. Thats what so infuriating, they only appear to manage predators for predator hating constituents even when the general public is not supportive of the highly aggressive killing policies. These state agencies do seem to be out of control.
Nancy to be clear the comments I have read in the past had to do with wolves and predators not beavers but I’m betting the response would be the same.
they don’t take residents comments seriously. it is all just theater. The a course of action has already been decided and unfortunately nothing les than court action will change it. the old “if you don’t like it sue us” and then they can crank up the propaganda machine about being sued.
so to answer your question…no
Even court challenges are not possible, there are no laws which give the public any ability to sue them, so, there is no accountability in Idaho. They just operate with impunity. It’s ALL a show.
Prices for furs at at a 30 year high as a result of mostly Asian fashion market demands. Most trappers are local folks (read that local voters & tax payers) so there is a big economic and political factor in play here at the state and local level. “out of state” objections about trapping are about as welcome as a skunk is to Christmas dinner….
“out of state” objections about trapping are about as welcome as a skunk is to Christmas dinner”
Course the welcome mat will always be out if you trapped animals for profit, right Mikepost?
http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38252
Same site, under “predator hunting”
http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/coyote-hunting
The Suppressed/ Snow Storm Youtube video. Gotta watch that MP.
Grown men getting their kicks, giggles & jollies, destroying wildlife, just cuz they can and probably feeling like they are doing a service, but to whom is the big question.
The background music doesn’t quite cover this coyote’s last agonizing moments of life (Shades of Rockhead?) Nor does anyone on this site give a sh*t as long as they have free access to killing wildlife that matters little to them but is a moving target when they want to go play around with their guns.
Not sure where you are coming from here…I was just making an observation, not stating a position….not a trapper myself…
I know that former F&G employees are killing beaver still today. So sad.
Are there any pro-wildlife groups in Idaho? Many!
-How about pro-wildlife groups that has hired consultants and then “organized” to team-up as a FORCE for wildlife on specific/targeted wildlife issues?
-Is there a coalition of wildlife support groups clearly focused on the state’s wildlife agenda, methods and means, coalitions that can recognize what, when, where, and how the state wildlife managers need support (for pro-wildlife science)?
-Is there any coalition of wildlife support groups that are specifically “organized” to effectively counter the anti-wildlife campaigns for public opinion?
People, please understand that any one of these noble, but focused efforts can absolutely change the tide. Your Idaho Wildlife managers are obviously not politicians, most are likely there because they love it, they love all of the aspects of outdoors including all the wildlife.
What the state wildlife managers need most is your support, all the while in full lobby to the politicians who actually dictate the policy from the public office they desperately hold.
Essentially the entire Idaho population live there (either born and raised or relocated) because they love the outdoors..dah. The demographic are a loyal group who know where they stand on the fundamentals.
The voting public holds the rope, but the hunters and trappers are quick to snatch it from a loose grip.
Just show the public how to hold the rope.
Huntin’ and a trappin’. Ain’t it grand?
Some people never grow up.