• By Erik Molvar
• Feb 17, 2021
•  https://www.mtexpress.com/opinion/guest_opinions/trapping-s-goal-is-not-to-manage-wildlife/article_9086b0c0-70a1-11eb-af71-b7d4dcef5e1b.html?fbclid=IwAR0VkpRU2ojZNshoCSQLcoso2LFHfB2iXeN1n38j76B3dIoT97nGy0x0zjc

The recent guest opinion by Rusty Kramer, president of the Idaho Trapper’s Association (“Trapping is a safe and effective wildlife management tool,” Feb. 10), is an offense to wildlife management professionals everywhere. I am a wildlife biologist with peer-reviewed studies published in the scientific literature, and to hear trapping being promoted as “a safe and effective wildlife management tool” struck me as completely dishonest.

Kramer’s secondary organization, cynically named the Foundation for Wildlife Management, has nothing at all to do with wildlife management. This organization’s chief claim to fame is as a front group for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to fund thousand-dollar bounties on wolves.

Trapping has never played a meaningful or ecologically useful role in wildlife management. Do we need to “manage” pine marten populations with trapping to prevent the decimation of pine squirrels? Is trapping of lynx a legitimate…