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Aug 07, 2023

John Aberth: Why don’t cruelty to animals laws apply to wild animals?

Under Title 13, chapter 8, subchapter 1 of the Vermont State Statutes, there is a “cruelty to animals” law that specifies certain practices that are deemed cruel and inhumane to animals and are

Under Title 13, chapter 8, subchapter 1 of the Vermont State Statutes, there is a “cruelty to animals” law that specifies certain practices that are deemed cruel and inhumane to animals and are therefore illegal (13 V.S.A. § 352). These practices include anything that “tortures,” “torments,” or “cruelly harms or mutilates” an animal; restraining an animal “in a manner that is inhumane or is detrimental to its welfare;” administering poison to an animal “with the intent that it be taken by the animal” and owning or training an animal “engaged in the exhibition of fighting.”

We trust that these laws should prevent the worst of human cruelty being inflicted upon animals and afford animals with a modicum of protection. Yet there is one category of animals — wild animals that are under the jurisdiction of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department (VFWD) — that are essentially exempt from these statutes and upon whom every one of these practices is perfectly legal to be applied. Indeed, the VFWD sells licenses and provides training that enable people to essentially engage in legalized cruelty to animals.

To clarify, I am talking about the trapping, poisoning, and hounding of wild animals. According to VFWD’s 10-year average, recreational trapping kills close to 9,000 animals a year in Vermont (https://vtfishandwildlife.com/sites/fishandwildlife/files/documents/Learn%20More/Library/NEWSLETTERS/FURBEARER/2022-Furbearer-Newsletter-web.pdf), which does not include non-target animals caught in traps, which likely raises the total closer to 20,000 animals a year. In the most common form of trapping, legholds, the animal is caught and painfully restrained in the trap for hours, possibly days, since the daily trap check law is hard to enforce, before being killed by the trapper. It is also perfectly legal to kill trapped animals in the most inhumane ways, including drowning, stomping on their chest, strangulation, bludgeoning, etc.

With hounding, packs of powerful hounds are set loose to run down, maul, and even kill bear, coyote, bobcat, raccoon or fox. This is nothing more than glorified animal fighting, which is illegal in all 50 U.S. states and in all U.S. territories. Normally, this activity should fall under the “torment” section of the Cruelty to Animals statute, but because the animal is a bobcat, not a domestic tabby, the laws don’t apply.

Finally, poisoning of wild animals is still allowed under Vermont’s excessively permissive “nuisance” laws (VSA 4828) that allow for the killing of any wild animal that is even deemed a threat to private property. Even as seemingly an innocuous activity as setting out poisoned rodent bait (rodenticide) can cause long-term damage as the poisoned mouse or rat is consumed farther up the food chain. Owls, hawks, bobcats, and other non-targeted animals end up poisoned due to rodenticides.

There has never been a coherent justification for why such gross maltreatment is meted out to wild animals, while not being allowed with respect to other animals. It is as if wild animals are considered “less than” other animals and unable to suffer, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have heard from trappers that they view wild animals as not being capable of feeling or suffering in the same way as other animals do; that somehow, the dazed animals they find in their traps are “asleep,” when in fact they are suffering from shock and are also trying to make themselves as invisible and quiet as possible out of complete and total fear. Such views go against all scientific research and knowledge on wild animals. As a licensed wildlife rehabilitator with 12 years of experience in the field, I can tell you that wild animals suffer the full range of emotions that domestic animals do; we simply don’t see it because we don’t have the opportunity of spending much time observing their behavior.

Recently, in line with laws passed last year by the Vermont legislature, Act 159 and Act 165, the VFWD enacted what are called “Best Management Practices” for trapping of furbearers and regulating the hounding of coyotes, respectively, which promised to make these practices less cruel. If this is indeed the case, then the Department should put its “money where its mouth is,” and allow for the Cruelty to Animals statute to apply to wild animals. If trapping and hounding cannot pass this test, then they are not humane, and they are very cruel. It is time that wild animals receive the same protections that we give to domestic animals and even livestock. It is time that they be treated equally in our relationship with the animal world, and not as “second-class citizens” upon whom the worst abuses can be visited. This indignity diminishes our own humanity, as well as the welfare of wild animals themselves.

John Aberth is a licensed volunteer wildlife rehabilitator who rehabs beavers, raptors, and other animals at Flint Brook Wildlife Rescue in Roxbury. He is a member of the board of Protect Our Wildlife. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.