Girl Scout Beaver Traps Upset Activists

[Ironweed]

Not a particularly interesting story, but who could pass up a headline like that?

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news...couts-Tra.html

Girl Scout Beaver Traps Upset Activists
By RACHEL D'ORO
Associated Press Writer


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP)--Let other Girl Scouts make bird feeders out of Clorox bottles and glue together little birch-bark canoes _ Troop 34 in Alaska is learning to trap and skin beavers. In a practice that has angered animal rights activists, the girls are killing the beavers as part of a state flood-management program.

``We think it sends a very, very bad message that when animals cause a problem you kill them,'' said Stephanie Boyles of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She said the Girl Scouts should want girls to become ``stewards of wildlife, not abusers.''

Last spring, about 10 members of the Fairbanks troop and their families helped catch two beavers using snare and lethal traps. The girls were taught how to find the animals' dens and how to lay the traps. Working under close supervision, the girls used knives to skin the beavers.

[Manu]

Why are the activisits pissed then. Its a flood management program. It is a tapering needed for the ecology.

People are so dense.

[206]

This activity could be part of their heritage and yes, for some, a way to a future livelyhood. Trapping in Alaska is a way of life to some, allowing those who trap to earn a living and provide for the family. Too many people today are getting their manties in a bunch. It's no different than people of the world getting upset over another culture's life practices like eating a dog or for some african tribes...drinking cows blood.

[Shadowhawk]

``We think it sends a very, very bad message that when animals cause a problem you kill them,'' said Stephanie Boyles of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She said the Girl Scouts should want girls to become ``stewards of wildlife, not abusers.''

So I guess she would have advocated letting the black plague run amok even further back then or start up again rather than keep the rat population under control.

This is why I have a hard time taking animal rights advocates too seriously. If the population is out of balance & the beavers aren't being made to suffer terribly for extended times by the traps, then it needs to be done, (much as Manu already said).

BTW...

People
Eating
Tastey
Animals

About time I started using my Boortz Institute of Insensativty Training student ID again, LOL

[jojo]

" I feel like PETA doesn't have a concept that trapping is considered a heritage here in Alaska,'' said Mike McDougall, a trapper who worked with the scouts. ``These kids are learning more than just how to take an animal. They're learning about ecology. They also got a definite sense of respect for the animals.''

Someone gets it. These kids learn about life head on. They could be sitting at home watching entertaining cartoons while getting potentially misled about how creatures in this world really are.

The program is helping to curb a burgeoning population of the large rodents, which in Alaska can weigh up to 70 pounds. Their growing numbers are attributed to recent warm winters and a drop in commercial trapping.

Don't kill them off. But at the same time don't let them eat themselves out of house and home. We keep reducing their habitat for ourselves but we disregard the fact that they have needs to. The smaller their habitat gets the less food there is for the herd. Thinning them out is right. Managing their numbers through regulated hunting is the best, most reasonable way to keep them around.