Boggess leads MN DNR in a direction incompatible with hunting and dogs

Post date: Jul 14, 2014 2:25:35 PM

Ed Boggess, MN DNR Fish and Wildlife Division Director is quoted this week in the Star Tribune as saying "... we feel that hunting and trapping are compatible activities" (Smith 2014). This statement flies in the face of what a number of organizations (including Dog Lovers 4 Safe Trapping MN and Sportsmen Take Action) have been quite vocal and correct in pointing out: how, given the current, lax trapping regulations, lethal trapping and snaring is killing people's dogs--including hunters' dogs--and discouraging hunters and other users of public lands from going where lethal traps and snares might be set.

This week's article is about the MN Walk-In Access Program (WIA), but of course the incompatibility of lethal trapping and snaring with other outdoor recreational activities is a problem in most of the state--especially on or adjacent to public lands or recreational or residential areas where dogs are most likely to be killed by the lethal traps and snares. Although MN Trappers Association Trapping Ethics call for trappers to take precautions to avoid non-target catches (including people's dogs), current MN trapping regulations do not require significant precautions to be taken.

Obviously, the lawyers and PR staff at the MN DNR have been hard at work spinning this new legal interpretation of the "compatibility" of one activity that brings dogs afield and another that silently kills them.

Ed Boggess, DNR Fish and Wildlife Division Director

References:

Smith, Doug. 2014. “Trapping Debate Goes a New Direction.” Star Tribune, July 13. http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/266894411.html.