TRAPPING OF ANIMALS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19519, 29 December 1937, Page 12

TRAPPING OF ANIMALS

PROTEST AT CRUELTY A HUNTER’S LAST BEAR Major Charles Van Der Byl, in his book, “My Fifty Years of Sport,” refers to his crusade against cruelty to animals. He says:— “Very few women take the trouble to inquire how their furs have been obtained; but every time they buy a trapped one they are condemning another animal to a death of torture to replace it. “Ermine is a particularly cruel, fur, owing to the frantic struggles made by these small creatures in their efforts to escape from the traps in which they are often left fbr many days. If white rabbit skins which are farmed were as expensive, they would probably be considered just as beautiful; but why cannot these or some fur substitute be used instead? “An old reformed trapper, telling me of his last bear, said: —'I heard it for many days before suspecting what the sounds were, and found the half-grown animal half-dead with its foot gangrened and stinking. Its teeth were broken with trying to sever the steel jaws of the enormous trap. . . . The bear’s other leg was mutilated by its own agonised and frantic biting.’ “For this reason I w,ould much like to see some other skin, such as goat, used for our Guards’ bear-skins. “What is Sport?” “I have recently had the pleasure of meeting Grey Owl, the Red Indian and ex-trapper, who gave up his trapping, being nauseated with ihe cruelty which it involved. “He is now employed by the American Government with his wife, Anahareo, in preserving the remainder of the beaver, one of the animals that have been so cruelly trapped for their fur. Hitherto I had only known him by his books, of which ‘Pilgrims of the Wild’ is one of the best. He treats the wild beaver just like children, and they know no fear with him, even living in his hut. “It was found that the extermination of the beaver had seriously upset the water supply in four of the American provinces, owing to the absence of the dams which they build. No beaver is allowed to be killed in those districts. "I tried to get him to come and stay with me, so that I could show him a hunt in the Midlands. “ ‘I should not care for it,’ he said; ‘the odds against the fox are too great, and to me your hounds are merely a pack of wolves.’ “‘But hunting is a grand sport,’ I said. “ ‘And so were the Indians having grand sport when they were hunting and scalping the white men,’ was' his reply"