Editor of the Reformer,

It’s hard to know where to begin in fact-checking Jerry D’Amico’s glorification of leg hold trapping (“The truth about the foothold trap,” Letters to the Editor, May 24). Let’s start with the fact that traps are totally indiscriminate — their steel-toothed jaws slam shut on dogs, cats, coyotes, otters, bobcats, threatened species like American Pine Martens and whatever else happens upon them, inflicting such horrible pain that the creatures will sometimes chew their own limbs off to escape. To see the reality of leg hold trapping, I’d encourage Reformer readers to view this video of a beautiful river otter flopping around in agony as it dies of thirst and hunger: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1213645272103610.

Beavers helped create the landscape that we enjoy and years of research has documented the contribution they make to our environment. A recent study illustrated how beaver dams are helping to clean pollution…