By GLYNIS HART
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The bathing suit portion of the Miss New Hampshire contest may have gone the way of the woolly mammoth, but it’s another clothing item bringing controversy to the pageant this year. When the pageant takes place over the last weekend in April, will the winner wear fur?
Every year for over a decade, the New Hampshire Trappers Association (NHTA) has donated a fur coat made from wild animals in the state to Miss New Hampshire.
“It’s all donated,” said Mike Kazak, of the NHTA. “We send it out and have a garment made.”
Kazak has been trapping since he was a boy, although he’s retired now and the rigors of walking a trap line in all weathers have become more daunting.
“It’s hard work,” said Kazak. “It’s a 24-hour-a-day process. I would be out in the field until dark, then up until midnight. Then get three or four hours sleep and go out again. It’s two hours’ work for each animal, and that’s after you get it home. It’s not like hunting, where you don’t go out if it’s pouring. It doesn’t matter if it’s rainy or cold or wind blowing, you still have to go out.”
Kazak said there has been controversy over trapping his entire life, but he sees the practice as an important tool to keep wild animal populations down. “Too much of anything causes problems,” he said. “Overpopulation and dying by starvation is not a pretty thing to see.”
New Hampshire Fish and Game maintains a list of trappers and hunters to call when wildlife interfere with farming or other human enterprises. Most of the nuisance animal calls are about beavers and skunks — skunks because they go after chickens, and beavers because they flood properties.
But what to some eyes is an authentic product of the state’s wild lands and forests others see as needless cruelty.
“Who’s to say that trapping is the answer? It’s so cruel,” said Meg Hurley of Claremont. Hurley and her husband Jack are animal-rights activists and vegans. They don’t eat meat and they actively avoid using products made from animals. “There are creative ways to manage wildlife that don’t involve cruelty.”
The Hurleys also question the idea of trapping to manage wildlife populations. “They don’t get the weakest ones,” said Jack. “If they just took the weak animals, that would be something.”
Kristina Snyder of New Hampshire Citizens Against Recreational Trapping reported a petition to ban trapping has garnered almost 500 signatures. Meanwhile there are 438 registered trappers in the state.
Both sides see it as a cultural shift, and both see outside agitators as a problem.
“They have huge lobbies that come from out of state,” said Snyder. “The Sportsmen’s Alliance is a nationwide organization that follows legislation in every state. Any legislation they consider anti-hunting or anti-trapping, they will send lobbyists to speak against the bill.”
Kazak said national organizations like the Humane Society of the United States and PETA take their activism too far, and give a bad name to local humane societies. “The local ones are out looking after cats and dogs and going after people that abuse animals, and that’s a good thing. They’re good people.”
“The animal rights people will take it to whatever extreme,” said Kazak. “There’s a handful of people harassing and threatening Miss New Hampshire on Facebook; she’s getting death threats.”
Legislation
In New Hampshire and Vermont, activists are fighting for a seat at the decision-making table. In order to sit on the N.H. Fish and Game Commission and advise the legislature on conservation, one must be “an active outdoorsman holding a resident fishing, hunting or trapping license in at least 5 of the 10 years preceding the appointment,” according to New Hampshire law.
“Five percent of New Hampshire residents have a hunting license,” said Snyder. “We don’t feel we’re getting the representation. The legislature defers to and supports that population over the general population.”
Snyder is working to get non-sportsmen included in the commission, although this year the effort was defeated. A similar push in Vermont, to get non-hunters represented on the Fish and Game commission, failed as well.
“In Vermont about 0.15 percent sportsmen trap. The percentage of those who either hunt, trap, fish in VT is about 16 percent of the total population,” said Brenna Galdenzi, Snyder’s Vermont counterpart. “They hold a lot of power given that they’re a minority.”
Galdenzi works with Protect Our Wildlife vermont. “Vermont Fish and Game is saying they’re in a fiscal crisis, but they continue to marginalize the non-hunting, non-trapping public.”
Traditionally, the fees from hunting and fishing licenses have supported conservation in the states, but as the number of sportsmen dwindles every year, a larger proportion of state conservation efforts are supported by the general fund.
“They need to find new sources of revenue,” said Snyder. “Many people contribute to conservation that are not hunters. We are willing to support wildlife financially — it’s just the system is structured so we don’t have that access. We’re holding off because we’re not being listened to. Why would we support that?”
A cultural shift
In both states and across the United States, the numbers of hunters, trappers and anglers continue to decline. A survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department found that since 2011 the number of anglers dropped by 22 percent to 25.8 million; hunters dropped by 16 percent to 11.5 million. Over the same period (2011-2018) wildlife watchers grew by 20 percent to 86 million participants. While USFWS found that wildlife watchers generated $3 for every $1 generated by hunters, activists say that because state boards are dominated by hunters, fishers and trappers they decline to pursue these other sources of revenue.
“I personally feel if we did get legislation passed, Governor Sununu would veto it,” said Snyder. “I’ve met with legislators that would love to restructure the whole system, but they’re politically afraid.” In Vermont, HB 190, a bill that would have opened up the commission in that state to allow non-hunters was defeated.
In 1990, license revenues contributed around 65 percent of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife budget; by 2016, that number was less than half — 32 percent — while state and federal funds contributed the other two thirds.
“Everyone is paying into it, but we have no voice in decisions,” said Galdenzi. In Vermont, activists are working to establish a legislative working group that would represent a wider spectrum of people who use the outdoors, and advise changes to put the Fish and Wildlife Board on a wider financial base.
In New Hampshire, activists have got their eye on that fur coat. “Miss New Hampshire should be seen as a compassionate, independent role model,” said Snyder. “She’s a college student, so what do her peers think?”
(Editor’s note: This story has been corrected. The following quote is from Snyder, not Galdenzi: “The Sportsmen’s Alliance is a nationwide organization that follows legislation in every state. Any legislation they consider anti-hunting or anti-trapping, they will send lobbyists to speak against the bill.” In addition, HB 190 was defeated in the Vermont legislature, not in New Hampshire.)
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