Encourage USFWS to Take Cruel Traps out of Its Toolkit on National Refuges
Dear John,
Your action is needed by Monday, May 6! Our national wildlife refuges are intended to be truly special places: protected havens where wildlife can thrive and we can enjoy beautiful natural landscapes. Recently, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a rule that would add crucial wildlife protections to refuges by limiting lethal management of predators. Under the proposal, predators on refuge lands could be killed only as a last resort, a significant improvement on current practices.
However, the proposal should go further by banning the use of body-gripping traps altogether as a predator management tool on refuge lands. These traps, which include leghold traps, body-crushing traps like Conibears, and neck snares, are immensely cruel and indiscriminate. No wild animal, pet, or human should have to fear stepping into a brutal body-gripping trap on a national wildlife refuge. As the USFWS makes other positive changes to its wildlife management practices, it should incorporate this long-overdue prohibition on such archaic devices.
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What You Can Do
No later than Monday, May 6, please submit a comment to the USFWS expressing support for the proposed rule and urging inclusion of a ban on body-gripping traps as a predator control method on national refuges. Please be sure to share our action alert with family, friends, and co-workers, and encourage them to take action, too. As always, thank you very much for your help! Sincerely,
Kate Dylewsky Assistant Director Government Affairs Program
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Photo by Jerry Kirkhart
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