Trapping Bobcats for Fur in the U.S. is Going Strong—And It’s Grisly

[Potoooooooo]

https://www.revealnews.org/article/americas-trapping-boom-relies-on-cruel-and-grisly-tools/

When I think of fur trappers, I imagine a frontiersman in a coonskin cap paddling his canoe full of beaver pelts down the Hudson River. But when reporter Tom Knudson thinks of trapping, it’s a guy trudging into a forest in Nevada, or some other Western state, to set a steel-jaw trap for a bobcat.

Knudson just published an investigation for Reveal, the publishing arm of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting, into these modern-day fur trappers and their methods. The headline sums it up: “America’s trapping boom relies on cruel and grisly tools.”

For the fur trappers, bobcats are the biggest prize. A high-quality bobcat fur coat can retail for up to $150,000. The species isn’t really at risk—the bigger problem is animal cruelty. Knudson writes:

What I discovered was a world of stunning scenery and searing pain, a landscape where bobcats and other animals are captured with a device so hazardous that it is outlawed in more than 80 nations, from Austria to Zimbabwe: the steel-jaw trap.

 

[Valjean]

Hideous

 

[Jarhyn]

Good. Seriously. Bobcats are a highly tenacious invasive species. I LOVE bobcats. Really I do. I find them marvelous and wonderful. So much so that I based my entire online life around them, and have many friends who do the same. But it doesn't change the fact that they are pests, and it doesn't change the fact that there are an extremely common and populous anima, and it doesn't change the fact that their pain before they die in a steel jaw trap is meaningless once they are dead*.

It doesn't change the fact that bobcats, like every other non-technological species on earth, evolves through birth and reproduction and death.

I have a pet Ferret. I've had cats and dogs and loved every little ball of floof that transitioned through my life or that has is in my life now. But I'm still gonna eat some delicious veal, knowing full well where THAT comes from. I know that I subsist on the corpses of things that have literally been created to suffer and die for my sustenance. I know that even when I eat nothing but rice and tofu, a legion of rats and mice get ground up in the combines and the rest are left to suffer as their homes are destroyed and the are exposed to predation. But that isn't actually a bad thing. It makes the idea of mice and rats stronger. And trapping bobcats makes the idea of bobcats stronger. Just as the demand for beef actually makes the idea of cow stronger. All we are doing here is changing the selection criteria for survival in nature.

What is cruel is sheltering animals from our existence until we can't anymore, so the paradigm shift is immediate rather than gradual.


*except for the damage it does to the person doing the trapping, potentially making them less likely to care about hurting people too.

 

[Valjean]

There are alternative trapping methods.

 

[Derec]

There are alternative trapping methods.

Yes, but sometimes Bobcats are armed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Good. Seriously. Bobcats are a highly tenacious invasive species. I LOVE bobcats. Really I do. I find them marvelous and wonderful. So much so that I based my entire online life around them, and have many friends who do the same. But it doesn't change the fact that they are pests, and it doesn't change the fact that there are an extremely common and populous anima, and it doesn't change the fact that their pain before they die in a steel jaw trap is meaningless once they are dead*.

I prefer to instill methods that require the lesser amount of pain. Yes, there is death. We can't live a life without causing some deaths, but we can try to decrease the amount of pain we cause because of our lives.

 

[Potoooooooo]

Good. Seriously. Bobcats are a highly tenacious invasive species.

What do you mean by invasive species? They are native to North America and as far as I know have never been introduced any where else

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I am suspicious of the $150,000 for a bobcat coat.

Still, you got to check your traps twice every day and dispatch the animal quickly.

 

[ZiprHead]

I bet bobcats like squirrels, nice or otherwise.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I bet bobcats like squirrels, nice or otherwise.

Yep... but they gotta catch us!

 

[bleubird]

I am suspicious of the $150,000 for a bobcat coat.

Still, you got to check your traps twice every day and dispatch the animal quickly.

http://www.hideandfur.com/inventory/6205.html
You be right.

 

[Axulus]

I agree that there should be laws/regulations against excessive pain and cruelty when hunting or trapping animals. But do consider this: Bobcats are predatory animals. Might overall pain and suffering be reduced as the number of Bobcats decline since their former prey will no longer be torn apart in a cruel and painful manner by the Bobcat?

Additionally, how happy and pain-free is the typical life of a Bobcat? If the typical life of a Bobcat is poor, nasty, brutish and short, each one killed spares it the pain and suffering of having to go through that.

 

[bleubird]

Anthropomorphic much?

 

[laughing dog]

I agree that there should be laws/regulations against excessive pain and cruelty when hunting or trapping animals. But do consider this: Bobcats are predatory animals. Might overall pain and suffering be reduced as the number of Bobcats decline since their former prey will no longer be torn apart in a cruel and painful manner by the Bobcat?

Additionally, how happy and pain-free is the typical life of a Bobcat? If the typical life of a Bobcat is poor, nasty, brutish and short, each one killed spares it the pain and suffering of having to go through that.

If the typical life of a very poor person is poor, nasty, brutish and short, each one killed spares it the pain and suffering of having to go through that.

 

[laughing dog]

Good. Seriously. Bobcats are a highly tenacious invasive species.

What do you mean by invasive species? They are native to North America and as far as I know have never been introduced any where else

They are more native to North America than white people.

 

[Axulus]

I agree that there should be laws/regulations against excessive pain and cruelty when hunting or trapping animals. But do consider this: Bobcats are predatory animals. Might overall pain and suffering be reduced as the number of Bobcats decline since their former prey will no longer be torn apart in a cruel and painful manner by the Bobcat?

Additionally, how happy and pain-free is the typical life of a Bobcat? If the typical life of a Bobcat is poor, nasty, brutish and short, each one killed spares it the pain and suffering of having to go through that.

If the typical life of a very poor person is poor, nasty, brutish and short, each one killed spares it the pain and suffering of having to go through that.

A Bobcat and a poor person's conscious experience is equivalent in every essential way? A bobcat's death causes the same level of misery and suffering to othes as a poor person's murder?

If not, what was your point?

 

[laughing dog]

If the typical life of a very poor person is poor, nasty, brutish and short, each one killed spares it the pain and suffering of having to go through that.

A Bobcat and a poor person's conscious experience is equivalent in every essential way?

For some reason you think that makes a difference.

A bobcat's death causes the same level of misery and suffering to othes as a poor person's murder?

You wrote what you wrote. I simply applied your reasoning to people. I see that it hit a nerve.

If not, what was your point?

Um, that your analysis was "unconvincing" and inhumane.

 

[Axulus]

A Bobcat and a poor person's conscious experience is equivalent in every essential way?

For some reason you think that makes a difference.

A bobcat's death causes the same level of misery and suffering to othes as a poor person's murder?

You wrote what you wrote. I simply applied your reasoning to people. I see that it hit a nerve.

If not, what was your point?

Um, that your analysis was "unconvincing" and inhumane.

You didn't provide any reasoning. You simply made an if/then statement.

 

[laughing dog]

For some reason you think that makes a difference.

A bobcat's death causes the same level of misery and suffering to othes as a poor person's murder?

You wrote what you wrote. I simply applied your reasoning to people. I see that it hit a nerve.

If not, what was your point?

Um, that your analysis was "unconvincing" and inhumane.

You didn't provide any reasoning. You simply made an if/then statement.

So did you. Apparently living a poor, nasty, brutish and short life is not a sufficient reason to put that being out of its misery.

 

[Axulus]

For some reason you think that makes a difference.

A bobcat's death causes the same level of misery and suffering to othes as a poor person's murder?

You wrote what you wrote. I simply applied your reasoning to people. I see that it hit a nerve.

If not, what was your point?

Um, that your analysis was "unconvincing" and inhumane.

You didn't provide any reasoning. You simply made an if/then statement.

So did you. Apparently living a poor, nasty, brutish and short life is not a sufficient reason to put that being out of its misery.

Ever hear of the Socratic method? I was making some observations for discussion purposes. I responded to your claim to show how it was a false analogy. That's not hitting a nerve, that's just normal discussion.

You're the one who seems to have had a nerve hit by immediately making it personal, calling an observation/fact of nature "inhumane"