Thread: Possum Traping In The Weekend

The rules pertaining to trapping are getting harder and harder to abide by every year. I think it is part of a very long term policy of keeping trappers and hunters out of the forest because it doesnt really fit with the touchy feely tourist image. Its hard to handle that over the last few years our 100s of traps have become illegal and our Lifetime Cyanide licences have been taken away from us. Now thats a great way to reduce the number of hunters and trappers in our forests for a start.

Take NAWAC... National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. They set standard for traps that are really stringent and often hard to understand and comply with and dont often make sense. There are rules for Africa about use of gin and leghold traps even if you are using them on your own land.

Take the Kill Trap..We have been through the testing process.... and if you want to test your trap on a mulitude of animals (Stoats rats etc etc) you will have to take out a morgage..The kill trap must kill within three minutes????? or it fails and your money has all gone down the drain.

No such requirement for poisons though to meet any Welfare standards.... Yet 1080 takes anywhere from 10 to 15 hours in some cases more to kill a possum...2 to 3 days of 'unspeakable agony' according to our RSPCA to kill a deer.

Of course there is the fact that the poisoning industry is a 100 million dollar industry and we wouldnt want any rules about animal cruelty to derail it would we?.