Actually pictures of dead animals going to waste should be an assett to trappers in our fight with the antis for the hearts and minds of the general public.
There is one reason it does not work out that way,-Antis are liars and they have a lot of money.They take a picture of dead wasted animals and plaster it all over the media and blame it on the "bad"hunters or "bad" trappers.We dont have any advocates in government or the money in our organizations to get the real story out there so the general public only hears the lies-only the one side.They never hear the truth from our side so they can make up their own minds based on the full story.
There is an interesting proof of this fact.
Quite a few years ago the antis got the spring bear hunt closed in Ontario.They used their unlimited millions of dollars to lobby government and petition the public with lies about orphaned cubs and decimated numbers(untrue) They were successful-for a while until the truth came out in a repulsive manner.

Bears after several years of curtailed hunting by sport hunters grew to numbers that became a huge unmanageable nuisance in all the towns and cities in Northern Ontario.Quietly,people were hired to get rid of nuisance bears that were repeat offenders.
One summer day a hiker came across a huge pile of festering bear carcasses in the bush not far from a city in northern Ontario.Pictures were taken,plastered all over the media,and the SHTF.The Govt had some explaining to do.Why were there piles of dead bears rotting in the bush outside of cities in Northern Ontario when no bears were supposed to be hunted anymore?

The govt laid it out for the public in no uncertain terms.They said -did you people really think that just because sport hunting was banned that the animals would not have to be killed/culled when they created problems from becoming overpopulated?
A useful valuable resource had been reduced to a rotting pile of garbage thanks to the efforts of the antis.

it wasnt too long after when the public realized the antis were liars with ulterior motives other than the well being of the resource,that they supported the re instatement of the Ontario spring bear hunt.

So you can see it is not the "picture " itself that is the problem but who uses it and how it is used.

Because we have few resources to get the true story out to the public when antis use pictures and lie about it,our best recourse is to not provide the antis with stuff that can be used against us.

The vast majority of the general public has no aversion to trapping and use of renewable natural resource as long as they are assured the animals taken are harvested humanely,are not endangered are managed under laws that protect the resource and are used for the maximum benefit.

If only we had the resources and support to teach the general public the truth.

I don't think pics of dead coyotes anywhere is our problem. It's the bloody pawed ones that looks or looked like it suffered for a time. It's people not educating themselves on how to catch and hold a critter without the animal doing damage to itself trying to escape then snapping a pic and putting it on social media. Trappers with no common sense and social media is our biggest threat. Imo

Make no mistake about it. The lack of a fur market is killing trapping faster than all the other factors combined.


Thats what they said in 1750 too.

Good posts Mark and your thoughts on the matter align with our late (and great) assoc. president Bob Gilman who was instrumental in defeating at least two ballot measures that would have banned tapping in Oregon.

You hit the nail on the head Boco. If the antys get there way it will all be tax paid Govment trapper pit pile pickchaws!! The waste system.

FHA will tell the story in the end this year
That's the grade gents nothing other than these will make the grade imo