Rethinking Animal Trap Ban
By Joanne Pilgrim
(12/01/2006) After considering an outright ban on the use of body-gripping animal traps on town-owned lands, the East Hampton Town Board is considering allowing the continued use of smaller models that may pose less of a threat to pets or people.
At a Nov. 21 work session, board members heard once again from Tom Miller, a muskrat trapper who had spoken at an Oct. 19 hearing on the proposed ban. “I think the law, as written, is going to knock out a lot of, as I’ll put it, the Bonac tradition in this town,” he told the board. “I think it’s just going to basically destroy the trapping out here.”
He suggested that, instead of adopting a broad ban as other towns have done, East Hampton fine-tune its regulation based on specific information about various traps and how they are used.
Guidelines from the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Trappers Association that recommend not setting traps anywhere a dog might encounter them were “compelling” to him as an argument to “move forward with an all-out ban,” said Town Councilman Pete Hammerle.
“When I look at the Town of East Hampton today I’m not sure there is a place where I could say, ‘I can set this trap and a dog won’t get into it.’ “
Mr. Hammerle acknowledged that “there seems to be a big difference in traps,” but said, “When I think about Zephyr and the potential that that could have been a child sticking its head in a bucket out of curiosity. . . . The difference is, can someone free themselves?”
Zephyr, a dog owned by Gail Murphy, was killed by a Conibear body-gripping trap near the Long Pond Greenbelt in Sag Harbor last year. Ms. Murphy has successfully petitioned Southampton Town to ban the traps and brought the matter before the East Hampton board.
Town Councilman Brad Loewen, who has opposed restricting any traps, citing tradition, said “health, safety, and welfare” are concerns for the board, but not “what is moral, what is cruel.” Because statistics show few incidents of injury to “non-target” animals from traps, he said he did not agree with restricting them. “We’re basing this on possibility,” he said.
In addition, he said, referring to the October hearing, “I really didn’t appreciate the fact that we were demonized or vilified — those of us who still go trapping or consider it a tradition.”
“I’m for a total ban of those larger traps,” Town Supervisor Bill McGintee said.
“I don’t know enough about these small traps to make a decision,” Councilwoman Debra Foster said. “In deference only to a local tradition, I’ll agree to look at it.” However, she said, “if we do go with that one exception, I would like to see residents-only permits.”
The board should research the various types of traps, their sizes, use, and function, and the threats they might pose, Mr. McGintee said, and consider allowing a “non-impact type of trapping that would still allow them to have their tradition ... with low-impact type of traps that won’t hurt anybody.”
Mr. Miller said that in winter he places his muskrat traps several feet below the surface of the water, where any other creature is unlikely to encounter them.
“I will speak on behalf of the muskrats,” Town Councilwoman Pat Mansir said. “They don’t want to be trapped either . . . hung by the paw.”
“Even traps that snap and would not catch a dog paw or foot are not something I want in our town,” she said. “I don’t want it in our woods where kids still go and play.”
Another concern, Mr. McGintee said, is that the East Hampton Town Trustees have indicated they would not approve of a ban on body-gripping traps on land that they control.
With some public land owned by the town, other public land owned by the trustees, and still more owned by the county and state, “I don’t want to craft a law that is inconsistent between the property owners we have out here — because most people don’t know whether they’re walking on trustee land or on town land,” Mr. McGintee said. “So they might have a perception that they’re safe, and these traps are out there.”
He said he hoped the town board and trustees would agree to ban larger traps. The town board will determine what to do about the smaller ones after further research.