Stevenson: The absurdity of Vermont’s hunting privileges … – Brattleboro Reformer
It is incomprehensible that hounding is legal. This activity offends on so many levels, from the ethical treatment of wildlife, animal welfare (the treatment of dogs, non-target wildlife, attack on domestic and farmed animals), private property and landowner rights (which hounders routinely violate), to public safety (multiple people and pets have been attacked with no laws violated).
Hounding has no basis in science and, in reality, drives bears out of the woods, their native habitat, and into surrounding neighborhoods, cornfields, and roads, not the other way around, which is the false narrative that Fish and Wildlife likes to spin. You cannot haze animals with dogs if you are not in visual sight or verbal control of those dogs. These are abused hounds, not trained border collies under the supervision of skilled handlers.
In Vermont, hounders and trappers are exempt from rules that the public is expected to follow. Let’s list a few. Those with hunting licenses, especially those who trap and hound, can gut, bludgeon, and physically manhandle ‘rabies vector’ species – without gloves – for ‘sport.’ Yet, the Fish and Wildlife Department does not allow the general public to help rabies vector animals or come in contact with them.
Vermont Fish and Wildlife prevents even veterinarians and wildlife rehabbers from helping most wild animals, including coyotes, deer, fawns, juvenile and adult raccoons, skunks, foxes, bears, and bear cubs, even when the animal’s injuries are a direct result of human cruelty or negligence. Yet, hunters can chase, harass, and kill these very same animals and come in direct contact with their bodily fluids simply for recreation and to post selfies on social media.
Wildlife rehabbers have a whole slew of regulations and restrictions placed on them by the department that they have to abide by, or they can lose their licenses. Yet, these rehabbers use their own money to help wildlife and don’t receive a penny from the department. So, the Fish and Wildlife Department, Commissioner, and Fish and Wildlife Board have no qualms about enacting rules and restrictions on others, but when it’s aimed at them, they cry foul.
That no one is held accountable in the department when people are attacked by hounds or when a woman’s rescue dog is caught in a horrid conibear trap adjacent to a public trial is, in my opinion, unforgivable and inexcusable.
Historically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was created to benefit cattle ranchers and trappers out west. The department’s mission was to exterminate any predators who would get in the way of farmers or be considered ‘competition’ for ‘game’ hunters. The methods used by Fish and Wildlife traditionally have been poisons such as compound 1080, trapping, and exterminating any wild animal that threatens a rancher’s livestock.
The Fish and Wildlife Department was never created to protect wildlife, nor is the department up to date with science and conservation. The department caters to small and dwindling groups of recreational hunters, trappers, and hounders who can financially profit from what they kill.
Hounding is a serious public safety risk. The conflict between landowners and hounders occurs regularly. Those who fall victim to hounders have no recourse. Hounders also seem to get a free pass when it comes to animal cruelty and how hounds are treated, including how the dogs are neglectfully kept, transported, and often disposed of when the season is over.
Furthermore, wild animals are routinely used for training hounds. Raccoons, opossums, and other animals are regularly captured and put into rolled wire mesh cages and tubing and then presented to hunting hounds as bait. Hounding is not sophisticated.
There was a chance to ban aspects of hounding last year in the Legislature. The Senate Natural Resources Committee, behind closed doors, decided to forgo bans and simply added a legal requirement that hounds must wear shock collars in addition to ‘GPS’ collars. ‘Shock collars,’ which most hounds already wear, do not control dogs. Hunting hounds are already abused and treated egregiously – which in itself should make the activity illegal, but instead of requiring hounders be in control of their dogs – meaning to be within visual sight and verbal control over them – legislators added shock to the mix. How on earth can this be justified or considered acceptable?
Hounders can come from out of state, run their dogs, abuse wildlife, terrorize homeowners and even injure domestic pets and farmed animals and then leave with no consequences. Vermont legislators have become part of the problem by condoning this behavior and being complacent.
Body-gripping traps should not be on public lands or off public trails. Hounding should be banned because hounders are not in control of their dogs. Hounders would be dog fighting and cockfighting if these activities were legal.
The Governor is responsible for the Fish and Wildlife Board and Commissioner. He is pro-trophy hunting, trapping, and hounding. Until he is voted out of the office or legislators push for responsible conservation and animal protective legislation, Vermont will continue to be progressive when it comes to gay marriage but the wild west when it comes to wildlife, public safety, and environmental conservation.