Country Life
A TRAPLESS COUNTRY
An eminent politician from- CzechO-Slovakia told me, after a recent discussion on animal welfare, that in his country traps of any sort were absolutely prohibited. People who wanted to kill rabbits or other animals must use guns or nets. He added that it astonished and appalled him to learn that traps were still permitted in England, " the most highly civilized country in the world." We have not only permitted the use of the steel-toothed trap, one of the most diabolical of instruments, but we are allowing it to be used wholesale, with the result that over a great part of the West Coast the balance of nature is quite upset. Foxes, stoats, weasels, pheasants, partridges, and other birds are killed off ; dogs and cats in quantity are maimed and even cows may be damaged. One was found the other day with a steel trap clamped to its tongue. The R.S.P.C.A. and local administrators of the law do nothing whatever to prevent these traps being set in the open, to the ruin of the wild and domestic life of the countryside. Is there any reason in the world why we should haver over regulations or varieties of trap, instead of adopting the simple method that prevails, without protest, in Eastern Europe ?
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