Take Action Today! Oregon members please contact your State Senator and let them know that these provisions on Senate Bill 6 are completely unnecessary and burdensome to trappers. Let them know that trappers help keep wildlife in balance and protect both the public and the livestock business. Members can contact their State Senator by using the Sportsmen’s Alliance’s Legislative Action Center.
A proposal that would likely turn law-abiding trappers into law breakers has been sent to the Oregon Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. Senate Bill 6, sponsored by Sen. Peter Courtney (D- Salem), forces trappers to check traps every 24 hours, a requirement that ignores the geography and distances faced by ranchers trying to protect livestock from depredation by predators. SB 6 also requires trappers to place signs all around traps, an invitation to animal-rights activists to sabotage or set off traps to prevent the trapping of problem furbearing animals.
The committee will hold a hearing on Senate Bill 6 on Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. in room HR C in the State Capitol Building. It is important that trappers contact their senators and attend the hearing if possible to make sure their concerns are heard. Under Senate Bill 6, trappers would face fines for allowing a trap to go unchecked for more than 24 hours or neglecting to put signs up around individual traps. In addition to the legal concern, SB 6 would drive up the cost of trapping, and ultimately contribute to many trappers giving up the sport, which is the intent of legislation like SB 6.
The public would also suffer if SB 6 passed. Trappers control predator populations, such as coyotes, disease-carrying wildlife, like skunks, and nuisance animals, such as beavers. Trapping benefits wildlife, such as waterfowl populations, which can be impacted by over populated varmints such as skunks and opossums, as well as ranchers who have to deal with livestock depredation by predators.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.