by: Alex Caron
June 1978
Probably by now you will all have heard about the Federal Provincial Committee for Humane Trapping, and know that it was set up mainly to find the most humane ways of trapping wild animals for fur.
To date, more than 200 ideas - ranging from drawings to actual prototypes - have been sent to us. Most of these have come from trappers.
But the FPCHT panel of experts has not yet been able to make any comment about devices and ideas in 2 broad categories. The first one concerns snares: killing snares, not leg-snares. We are hoping to start research in this important area in the coming year.
The second category includes all devices which are designed to take animals underwater. But we don't yet know enough about how water animals die under the water to be able to comment on the humane efficiency of these devices.
That's not too difficult, you may well say. We know what happens to the beaver, muskrat, mink and otter caught underwater. They drown. And you don't need to be a scientist to know that.
Right? Wrong!
When people think of drowning, they generally have a picture of the victim gasping for air and thrashing about in a panic-stricken frenzy before the lungs fill with water and drowning occurs.
Certainly this is a view expounded by some of trapping's more vocal critics. We quote:
"A beaver trapped in an under-water set can take up to twenty minutes to drown. All this time it fights the trap, sometimes breaking its teeth in a desperate effort to escape. Besides, no authority in the world recommends drowning as a method of euthanasia; and aquatic animals do not often drown instantly." (Mrs. Bunty Clements, President, Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals)
But consider these aquatic animals for a moment. They have adapted themselves to living at least part of the time underwater, and therefore cannot be expected to react like animals which live all the time on land.
When these animals submerge, their systems simply won't allow them to breathe or even gasp for air. Because when they submerge, a reflex is triggered which closes off their air passages so that the water can't get in.
They also have a very efficient way of conserving oxygen underwater. They have the ability to send available blood only to the brain, and this effectively allows them to stay under water longer without going up for air.
All this means that their reactions when they are caught underwater must be looked at in a very different light from the way in which a human might be expected to respond in the same situation. And there is a theory that water animals, when trapped underwater - or which dive underwater after having been trapped on land - die from carbon dioxide narcosis. That means they apparently go into a coma and die as a result of a combination of lack of oxygen and a build-up of carbon dioxide. (This could well be compared with the way in which certain animals are euthanised in some humane society shelters, where carbon dioxide is used.) But the theory has not yet been proved or disproved.
Therefore, the FPCHT last year started scientific research to look into just how these animals do die underwater. We call it the "Terminal Dive Stud", and it is being conducted at the University of Saskatchewan. Some problems have occurred as new equipment has had to be developed for the study, but we believe that when it is completed, the results will have considerable significance, in determining the most humane ways of trapping water animals - animals which, by the way, make up over 70% of the total fur take each year in this country.