Word: leghold
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...cruel methods of hunting and trapping animals. Question One, the only referendum question on this year's ballot, would change current law in three ways: It would abolish the requirement that five of the seven board seats go to hunters, ban steel jaw and padded leghold traps, and prohibit the use of dogs in hunting bears or bobcats, with some exceptions...
...vote on Question One would also ban cruel, painful traps that catch an animal by gripping any part of it rather than by confining it whole, as a cage does. Most of the traps that would be banned are steel-jaw and rubber-jaw leghold traps, both of which crush the limbs of animals they catch. Leghold traps pose a serious danger to household pets as well as the animals trappers mean to catch. "For every target animal, there are two to three untargeted animals that are trapped," says Aaron Medlock, legislative policy analyst for the Humane Society...
Will Question One remove all methods of preventing animal overpopulation, as its opponents suggest? Hardly. States that have already banned leghold traps and hounding have successfully and humanely controlled animal overpopulation. In addition, Question One allows the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, scientists and people who have "reasonably" but unsuccessfully tried to control an animal problem on their property to apply for a limited permit to use the banned methods. Thus Question One would reserve the cruelest methods as last resorts and prevent their use as sport without allowing animal overpopulation to go unchecked...
...Banning leghold traps and hounding would keep countless animals from needless pain and suffering. This fundamental point is lost on some opponents of Question One. "Hunting is sort of like if you have a crop of carrots and the crop is coming up too thick and you have to weed some of them out so the rest will survive," says Melbourne Crouse, director of the Gun Owners Action League. "I don't think there is anything wrong or cruel about...
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