Beaver and Coyote Legislation

Animal protection group opposes coyote and beaver bills

June 30, 2004

BOSTON --The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals criticized two bills progressing through the Legislature that would expand beaver trapping and coyote killing.

Both bills were advanced Tuesday by the Joint Committee on Natural Resources with a recommendation for adoption.

MSPCA director of advocacy Kara Holmquist told the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester that the beaver bill defies the will of voters, who approved an anti-trapping law in 1996.

That law prohibited the use of conibear traps, which grab hold of the beavers in the water and drown them. The legislation recommended Tuesday would let the Division of Fisheries & Wildlife set up pilot programs allowing a resumption of the use of conibear traps. It would also provide for limited open trapping season for beavers in five counties.

Holmquist said the beaver bill allows "inhumane" beaver trapping and would do nothing to reduce or alter the population of beavers in the state.

Current rules allow local boards to authorize trapping of troublesome beavers. Some conservation commissioners, developers and property owners, have complained that beavers are damaging property by building dams as they have re-established themselves across the state.

Beavers have been blamed for blocking drainage culverts, damming streams, polluting drinking-water wells and turning developable upland areas into wetlands that can't be built on.

The coyote legislation would allow Fisheries & Wildlife to "use the most effective means possible" to trap or kill coyotes "that present a threat to human health or safety."

Wildlife officials would have to obtain approval of local selectmen or city councilors in communities before coyote trapping or hunting.

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