By Joe Miele
VP, Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting
Wildlife "conservation" agencies often play
upon the public fear of rabies and other diseases to justify and
promote their self-serving hunting and trapping programs. Like most
of their other claims, their claim that trapping keeps wildlife diseases
in check has absolutely no basis in reality.
Their public statements are simple ones: by reducing
the population of a given species, fewer animals will remain to spread
disease and kill your children. Game agencies also try to appeal
to the "animal lovers" by making the false claim that nature
is "cruel" and without recreational trapping, the animals
will die a slow and agonizing death as disease ravages each and every
one of them, until there are no animals left. State game agencies
must be applauded for their fine use of hyperbole and fiction, but
their deliberate dissemination of false information is nothing to
praise. When the truth is told, it proves unequivocally that not
only does trapping not keep the number of diseased animals in check;
the practice is actually responsible for the growth rate and the
spread of diseases such as rabies and mange. (Photo
above: Marilyn Leybra opening a conibear trap. To learn how,
go to www.wildwatch.org )
How can this be so? As far back as we can remember
we have been told that killing some animals is necessary, because
without our "help" they will starve or die of disease.
Aside from the fact that the animals survived very well on their
own before Homo Sapiens started managing them, there is much evidence
that proves the misinformation spewed by game agencies. In fact,
much evidence proves the contrary is true.
The state of Virginia recently implemented a program
that very nicely counters the arguments of trappers. Virginia, in
cooperation with the states of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
West Virginia and Vermont, began a program to halt the spread of
disease by vaccinating the wild raccoon, coyote and fox population.
Officials distributed more than 400,000 ice cube-sized fish meal
baits containing the rabies vaccine across a 2,000 square-mile area
in southwest Virginia. The baits were distributed by hand and by
low-flying planes. Given that the program cost several hundred thousand
dollars, it would have been far less expensive to send trappers into
the woods to "cull" the diseased animals. That seven states
chose the vaccination program over using trappers indicates a belief
on the part of the state that there are more effective ways to control
disease than by using traps. Since trapping is a well established
practice in Virginia, it does not seem to be halting the spread of
the disease.
The effect trapping does have on wildlife is that by
reducing the number of strong, healthy animals in a given population,
it leaves sick and diseased animals behind and pollutes the gene
pool.
Trappers are successful in their craft because they
know the habits of wild animals. They know what scents they are attracted
to, and they know where they live and how they travel. When an animal
is sick from a disease such as rabies, that animal will not behave
in the same manner that a healthy member of his species will. During
the advanced stages of rabies, the infected animal will not be hungry,
and therefore will not be attracted to trap sets like their healthy
brethren will be. This is precisely the stage when rabid animals
try to spread their disease. The result is that the sick animals
who pose the greatest risk to the health of wildlife populations
are seldom caught in traps. The traps themselves are non-selective.
They will catch any animals that triggers them, be that animal sick
or healthy, a raccoon or a domestic cat. Traps simply cannot distinguish
one animal from another. It is folly to attempt to explain how traps
can target sick animals.
When healthy animals are killed and removed from the
population, the sick and diseased animals are free to spread out
and cover a wider area. In this way, trappers actually help to spread
the very diseases that they are telling us trapping will contain.
The World Health Organization confirms this fact in an article discussed
in the August 7, 2001 edition of the Hartford Courant. The Courant
reports that it is the opinion of "the World Health Organization
and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that trapping
not be used to control rabies because it eliminates a healthy buffer
population that impedes the spread of the disease."
Catch a trapper in a moment of weakness and you’ll
be surprised to hear what they say. Taxidermist and trapper Troy
Hall said that he has never trapped to suppress or eradicate disease,
and he thinks it is odd to claim that trapping will prevent animals
from suffering from disease.
In his book Jaws of Steel, Ph.D. and former trapper
Thomas Eveland explains that many claims made by trappers are simply
not supported by scientific literature. Eveland tells his readers
that over a period of more than a decade, a large-scale trapping
campaign instituted by the State of Virginia failed to demonstrate
any reduction in the incidence of rabies. Adding insult to the trappers’ injuries,
some researchers felt trapping had caused a definite increase in
the number of rabies cases. Perhaps this explains why Virginia is
now using bait drops to control the spread of rabies.
Eveland also speaks of a 1973 report entitled "Control
of Rabies” by the National Academy of Science. The report consisted
of many things, including a list of recommendations. Recommendation
Number 10 reads: "Persistent trapping or poisoning campaigns
as a means to rabies control should be abolished. There is no evidence
that these costly and politically attractive programs reduce either
wildlife reservoirs or rabies incidence. The money can be better
spent on research, vaccination, compensation to stockmen for losses,
education or warning systems."
Ten years later, Fromm Laboratories issued a report
entitled "Report on Rabies." The report reads in part: "Trapping
to control rabies is considered to be an exercise in futility in
the face of a rabies outbreak, because the disease itself will limit
the population, and clinically rabid animals are rarely caught in
traps."
Gee, that’s not what the trappers have been telling
us for so many years.
When the evidence is examined, it clearly indicates
that trapping fails to stop the spread of rabies, and in certain
circumstances, it may actually increase the number and percentage
of rabid animals in a given population. Rabies spreads faster where
there is trapping than where there is no trapping at all.
You don’t have to just take Eveland’s word for it because
other experts echo his assertions. Gary Suhowatsky is a research
analyst who was employed by the New York State Department of health.
In 1977 Suhowatsky testified before the New York State Assembly Subcommittee
on Wildlife. What he had to say made every trapper within 1000 miles
wince. Suhowatsky provided testimony which indicated that not only
is there no evidence to support the claim that trapping reduces the
incidence of contagious diseases in wildlife, but “that trapping
selectively kills the healthiest and most mobile animals in the population
and leaves behind the most sickly and sedentary members to perpetuate
the spread of, and elevate the incidence in, the diseases in wildlife
populations.”
Suhowatsky testifies that in un-trapped, natural ecosystems,
there is virtually no incidence of disease. Natural selection ensures
that only the strong, healthy and most resistant to disease will
survive to breed the new generation. Sarcoptic mange had never been
known in a red fox in New York State, until after 1945 when the effects
of trapping began to show. The same is true for rabies. The first
reported case of wildlife rabies ever recorded in New York occurred
in 1941. By 1943, only one additional case of wildlife rabies had
been reported. But soon after, the effects of wide spread trapping
began to show its ugly head. Now, an average of 119 cases of rabies
are reported annually in New York's foxes. It is sad to learn that
once rabies free, foxes have had this terrible plague inflicted upon
them because of increased trapping pressure.
As trappers continue to shout that their ugly trade
contains the spread of disease, the animals they do not trap continue
to spread the disease faster than they could have if the trappers
would have just sat on their sofa and watched football on a Sunday
afternoon instead of combing the woods for animals to kill. We agree
with Mr. Suhowatsky that “nothing short of a total ban on trapping
will ever restore health to our wild animal populations.”
It can also be shown that the incidence and spread
of rabies can be directly correlated to the number of trapping licenses
sold. Since the mid 1940’s, statistics for the number of trapping
licenses sold and the number of cases of wildlife rabies have been
recorded. Using a statistical analysis tool known as the “product-moment-correlation-coefficient,” we
are able to mathematically and irrefutably determine relationship
between trapping license sales and the number of cases of rabies
in wildlife. If what the trappers say is true, the number of rabies
cases should decrease when more animals are trapped. But if the opposite
is true and trapping causes the spread of rabies, the “product-moment-correlation-coefficient” will
indicate this. But when examining the data generated during the period
from 1945 to 1975, the evidence shows conclusively that trapping
not only does not control the spread of rabies, but trapping actually
promotes and artificially sustains its continuation and spread.
The facts speak for themselves. The experts have done
the research and have come to a conclusion that every trapper hates
to hear and refuses to believe. Trapping for disease prevention is
nothing but a terrible myth perpetrated upon an uninformed populace.
Unfortunately for the animals, the spread of this myth is as lethal
to them as the spread of disease.
To obtain JAWS OF STEEL by Thomas Eveland, go to www.Amazon.com or
contact The Fund For Animals – www.Fund.org
