by Kathleen Stachowski of Other Nations






While wind turbines are indeed responsible for raptor deaths, they aren’t the only threat that eagles must face:

Threats to migrating eagles in the form of power line electrocution, poisoning, shooting, lead contamination due to fragmented rifle bullets in carrion and gut piles, vehicle collisions, habitat degradation and others have been ongoing for many years. Indeed, threats to Golden Eagles have clearly increased and may have reached the point where reproduction is unable to keep up with increasing mortality. —Raptor View Research Institute

Our human-constructed world constitutes a deadly obstacle course for eagles and, frankly, for most wild animals (coyotes attempting to attend a Cubs game notwithstanding). But snares, unlike wind turbines, have but one express purpose and one desired outcome: the intentional death—cheap and easy—of a living being. That snares are of inherent, barbaric cruelty is of little consequence:

Find a path that you know the animal travels and hang the snare at the height were that animals head will be and make the loop a little bit larger than the intended preys head. When it’s head goes through the loop it will feel the wire, panic, then try to bolt causing the snare to close. The more it fights the tighter it gets and it will eventually strangle itself. This way you don’t have to worry about dealing with an angry and very much alive opossum with its foot in a snare. It also saves you a bullet. —Source: “How do snare traps work?” Yahoo! Answers

Addendum: This morning we awoke to news of a mountain lion caught in a wolf trap set just outside the boundary of Glacier National Park. The trap was illegally baited. A park employee, returning to the site later, unintentionally sprang another trap with his foot. News story here.