Despite the immense benefits regulated hunting promotes, concern over protections for the natural world become more polarized as society drifts farther and farther away from these subsistence activities. This includes any perceived “perversion” of natural resources - backing both the greater hunting community and wildlife management professionals into a corner with regard to what should or should not be tolerated.

While the stereotype of the modern trapper is that of an uneducated redneck with a thirst for the blood of woodland critters, this licensed trapper’s been feeling like a sir. I’ve been busy with a penned tsunami of printed goodness via several different (and well known) publications - both local to New England and abroad.

For many in the hunting/conservation worlds, the announcement of Arkansas’ predator permit is a double edged sword. While the permit allows for a restoration of conservation balance, it also raises concerns with the socially perceived wanton waste of natural resources - the furbearers themselves.

The state is already seeking to ban the primary mode of “dealing” with the nutria issue (trapping), and is now on a warp-speed course to remove all incentive for anyone to trap the animals in the future (via a fur usage ban). Since the state has done such a “bang-up job” of banning two primary modes of helping to control the persistent fur-bearing rodent, the only thing left to do is ban the craftily little unwanted guests themselves.

With the greater hunting & fishing community leading the “financial charge” to manage and conserve wildlife for all stakeholders, the selfish perpetuation of moral superiority seems to be the driving force for local activists - shaking their fists at the hunting community and real wildlife professionals while damning the human race for ever setting foot off the designated hiking trails.

The following letter was recently written by long-time sportsman’s advocate and conservationist William Carney. The following letter appeared in the April 16th editorial/opinion section of the Concord Monitor - a New Hampshire-based newspaper. Bill’s letter is reposted here, with his permission, in its full and uncut entirety. Readers of the Furbearer Conservation blog are encouraged to draw their own conclusions from the content of this letter.

For decades, the New Hampshire Trapper’s Association has generously donated a brand new fur coat each year to the winner of the Miss NH Scholarship Program. While this makes the NH pageant unique, it also makes the program an easy target for activists who aren’t content with just “agreeing to disagree”.

Disease, debate, and discourse abound amid New Hampshire’s controversial fox hunting/trapping restriction proposals. The NH Fish & Game Department now finds itself in an awkward squaredance with Sportsmen, Activists, and Politicians.

For most, the consistent calls to ban hunting and the over-exaggerated criticisms of trapping activities just comes off as an attempt to intimidate, dominate, and control a narrative. But more recently, the activism derived locally has pushed far from promoting a message of opposition to hunting and trapping, and mutated into a brutal campaign against hunters and trappers - individually.

Guest writer Rob Hatch discusses mounting concerns over the current state (and future) of the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge, the Great North Woods of both New Hampshire and Maine, and the intentions of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.