TALKING POINTS to help your testimony and messages. Select one or two points and personalize your message to be most effective.
1. Hunting and fishing are already protected in the Constitution. This repetitive amendment clutters the Constitution with detailed activities. We can’t add and don’t need amendments to protect each and every type of sport or employment.
2. Trapping is managed as recreation. Why not just resolve to protect recreation in MT rather than mess with the Constitution? This was suggested in South Dakota when legislators killed a similar bill.
3. Trapping does not provide “life’s basic necessities.” Trappers made a profit of $56,000 last season and reported harvesting more than 50,000 animals. That makes trapping a net loss with the associated costs of gas and equipment. A handful of people in Montana pursue trapping for their livelihood. In fact, trappers resist a mandatory trap-check time because they have jobs.
4. Enshrining trapping in the Constitution can severely harm the state’s economy. Lynx, wolverine, fishers and pine martens are severely depleted species, largely due to trapping. Lynx are already on the endangered list, soon to be followed by wolverine and fishers. This type of listing shuts down industry on our public lands. Timber projects have been halted in the Gallatin, Kootenai and Custer National Forests to protect the endangered lynx.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION ON THIS BILL. WE CANNOT LET TRAPPING BECOME A PERMANENT FEATURE OF MONTANA, HARMING OUR WILDLIFE, OUR SAFETY, ECONOMY AND REPUTATION. THANK YOU!
Exposing the Big Game 
The idea that trapping animals, causing untold misery, suffering and death, is called “recreation” can only be described at INSANE. But then, this species has always been this way. I wish Monantans success!
This is happening because we are a flawed species. We are defective and we are destructive. It is as simple as that.
Man is an invasive species with no conscience.