contribution
I remember when I was in grade 4 or 5 livin up north. A couple of my friends had a trapline and one day I went with them to see what they had got the night before. They had some snares and some little squirrel traps and at the end of the trapline there was two big coyote traps they had set up. We walked the trapline and I retrieved an ermine or two and a squirrel for them and I never even flinched at the thought of retrieving a dead frozen animal from a trap. As we walked to the coyote traps I was anticipating a coyote even though they had never caught one before and they figured the chances of getting a coyote were pretty slim. You have to remember that we were really young and catching a coyote to us was almost more than our minds could handle.
As we approached the first trap we were kind of surprised to see a magpie frozen and dead on the ground. As we approached the second trap we heard a growl and sure enough a coyote lay on the ground baring it's fangs at us. We looked at the coyote and we tried to figure out how we were going to kill it. They had never come across a live animal in a trap, and definetly not one almost the size of someone our age so they were about as stumped as I was. We had no gun of course, not even a knife.
We probably spent half an hour trying to kill that coyote until finally we went to the nearest house and asked if the man living there would come and shoot the animal for us. He happily did so and I never had a second thought about that afternoon until I got older and realized the value of quick humane kill.
Nowadays when I think of that half an hour or so of torture we put that animal through I kind of flinch a little. I've thought about setting up my own trapline but every time I think about that coyote, even though it was so long ago I quickly have second thoughts. Not only do I think about the coyote but the other animals that we retrieved that day and how once they were trapped, all they could do was sit there, and wait until they are to cold to live.
Now by no means am I an animal rights activist, or an anti hunter or trapper. In fact I hunt myself and do not have anything against trappers. The only thing is that I value a quick humane kill, which is not always possible, but a value of mine nonetheless. I figure that Mr. Miskosky or any trapper that visits the board might be able to give me some thoughts on trapping and what can be done to make the trapped animals death as humane as possible.
Thanks,
Shrubs
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