How many trappers were at the meeting? How many trappers are there in the State? How many trapper write there State representatives ? I would bet if there were numbers put to the above question it would be less than 1% and you wonder why you are not wining. JMO
Easy sweet cheeks, you don’t know how it works here. Your numbers are wrong. There’s more than 1% here on this thread. We have been and are winning no matter how it looks. But we’re sinking. We don’t have the needed numbers to constantly fight this and prevail. How many trappers are in Michigan compared to our numbers?
As of mid October when I talked to ODFW, there are about 1400 branded trappers in Oregon(brands are forever since ‘68 or ‘69, death doesn’t take you off the rolls), there are an average of 250 - 300 trappers that get their lisc every season, there are 150,- 200 that actually and actively trap. I have to trust the accuracy of and to the person I spoke with. Of course these numbers fluctuate some year to year. These petitions are public but not announced. Salmon, trout, elk, deer and those are publicly announced and get lots of attention. Trapping unless a vote of the people, is handled "secretly" unless someone is actively looking for such things or stumbles upon it, it doesn’t make the radar. Historically the comment periods for trapping has been about half the time as comment periods for other other commission agenda items. This one was a week, Monday to the vote on Friday. Example, Fish get a month with several public comment meetings statewide in that time frame, before the vote. As far as less than 1%, out of 200 active trappers in the state, you have more than 1% here trying to spread the word and talk about it to keep information up to date and reporting that they were part of the meeting. State representatives have nothing to do with the fish and wildlife commission here, commissioners are direct appointees by the governor until they quit or are retired by the governor. Before you say it, Outdoors men and women don’t have the clout to vote our governor out in this part of the world. The influx of out of staters are sinking us, especially from the state south of us.
The NW has been and will continue to be a hot spot and testing ground for stuff like this. Oregon is the last hold out and they are learning from it. Once they perfect their technique they will start in other areas, like yours. It doesn’t start out as blatant as it has become here, it starts small and inconspicuous.
When these groups lose, they regroup and come back with more, people, groups, money, emotion based "science" in bigger/longer written petitions. Do you think each of the commissioners actually read all 212 pages of the petition?
They will eventually win here through attrition, but we’ll keep fighting them all the way if nothing else just to (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) them off and be a pain in their (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman).
Owl