FEBRUARY 17, 2022 BY PAXSON WOELBER

In recent weeks, multiple dogs have been caught—and at least two killed—in traps placed in popular Southcentral Alaska multiuse areas. The incidents have reignited a decades-long debate about the use of public lands and Alaska’s uniquely permissive trapping regulations, which allow trappers to place unmarked, baited traps at parking lots, trailheads, and on or immediately adjacent to multiuse trails on virtually all public lands in the state.

Abby

On an overcast day in January, Mary Beth Koster and several friends skied up the popular Snow River trail in Chugach National Forest near Seward with their dogs. Mary Beth told the Landmine that she was about twenty minutes from the parking lot when she heard her dog, Abby, yelp. Mary Beth and her friends rushed to the sound and found Abby’s head and paw caught in a powerful “quick-kill” Conibear 330 trap that had been…