The humane and ethical trapper will put an animal that has been caught in a foothold trap or live trap down as quickly and as pain free as possible. Hopefully, every trapper strives for this.
With the current legal battles that are facing trappers, along with all of the other negative press we are receiving, we as trappers must do what we can to put a positive spin on trapping. Along with everything else we do with pride as trappers, dispatching an animal must be done the same way.
Some of the sets we make will be lethal sets and dispatching an animal is not a concern. If you are not making a slide-wire drowning system for raccoons, or using a big 10x10 conibear for your next blanket beaver, do you know how to ethically and humanely dispatch an animal? Do you know what equipment is needed to do it?
It took me until the age of 47 to come full circle and ditch the shotguns and rifles and go back to
