By James Stone
Canadian Mission to the EU

August 1998

Last year, the European Union signed two international agreements that set the standards to be met for a trap to be called "humane", commit countries to determine which traps are humane, and require countries to prohibit all traps which do not meet these standards. The first was with Canada and Russia, and the second was with the United States. With two strokes of the pen, these countries were exempted from an EU import ban on fur from certain species, and animal welfare interests accused the EU of selling out to commercial interests. But was this really the case?

In 1991, the EU passed Council Regulation 3254/91, prohibiting imports of the furs of 13 wild species from countries which still permitted the use of any form of jaw-type leghold trap. Countries could be exempted from this ban if they caught these species according to internationally accepted humane trapping standards. The Regulation also banned the use of jaw-type leghold traps in the EU as of January 1, 1995.

This law, which has become a cause célèbre in the European Parliament for animal rights groups, is part of a concerted effort to destroy the EU market for wild furs by attacking the exports of the major producers: Canada, the US and Russia. This they have sought to do by depicting trapping of wild mammals as synonymous with the fur trade, by characterising both as inhumane, and by linking both to one particular type of trap, the jaw-type leghold.

But this strategy has been highly misleading. Wild animals are routinely trapped in many countries not for their fur, but as "pests". In the EU itself, at least 5 million wild animals are trapped annually, mostly as pests, although some furs are sold (see Box 1). By comparison, Canada harvests the furs of about 1 million wild animals each year, from a land mass three times as large. And the largest "take" in the EU (as in Canada) is of the muskrat, with the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium trapping at least 1 million between them each year. As most animals are trapped as pests, one should expect any debate about the welfare of trapped animals to focus on pest control, and yet animal rights groups have largely chosen to ignore this aspect.

Meanwhile, the distinction between pest control and commercial use is not clear. Pest control is usually justified in terms of economic benefit, and it is because of the economic damage they cause that EU countries kill muskrat. And yet a muskrat caught for its fur is one less pest that must be killed. While individuals hold different opinions, Europeans at large accept the commercial use of wildlife, subject to controls.

Typically, the trapping of fur-bearers for commercial trade is subject to numerous controls to ensure sustainability. Canada regulates where the territories where trapping can occur, how many trappers can operate, and how many animals they can take. As a result, its fur-bearer populations have either remained stable or have increased. Just as typically, trapping for pest control is not subject to controls as it is clearly not intended to be a sustainable activity. In the 1950s the UK successfully exterminated all the country's nutria by trapping, and the Netherlands currently has an official muskrat extermination policy.

Traps come in all sorts of sizes and types. Animal rights groups have focussed on jaw-type leghold traps used to capture animals alive, but ignore the huge variety of other types, of which over 200 are used in the EU alone (see Box 2).

Traps are designed either to kill an animal or to hold it alive until the trapper arrives (as might be the case, for example, in a relocation programme). At least 90% of animals trapped in the EU and Canada are accounted for by killing traps, while live-capture traps used underwater function as killing traps. In the Netherlands, for example, the most widely used trap is an underwater cage into which muskrat swim and drown. Clearly, in terms of the number of animals involved, welfare concerns should focus on killing traps just as much as on live-capture traps.

Traps are generally selective in the animals they catch, in spite of claims to the contrary by animal rights groups. Different combinations of traps and methods target species quite well (see Box 3).

The way traps are permitted to operate is important. Animal rights groups maintain that all jaw-type leghold traps (including those that produce few, if any, injuries) are inhumane, but are silent about the application of these notions to the many other types of traps used. EU legislation does not define "humane" with regard to the treatment of wild animals, and furthermore does not specify any objective minimum trap standard concerning "humaneness" or selectivity.

While some Member States set standards for traps, there is no consistency from one state to the next. While the Netherlands permits drowning, it is prohibited in Germany except for "non-German" species such as muskrat and raccoon. In Germany, traps must kill "instantaneously" but there is no maximum period of time. France, as of April 1998, permits underwater jaw-type leghold traps, and the UK permits snare-type leghold traps. Few Member States have identified permitted injuries or minimum times to death.

Against this background, development of a workable definition of "humane" would clearly involve setting objective parameters against which current and new traps could be tested for compliance. The difficulty was in defining these parameters. Animal rights groups argued that no traps could be considered "humane", but this approach was unconstructive as it gave no incentive to develop better traps, and simply replacing jaw-type leghold traps with something worse would be counter-productive.

In 1994 Canada asked the EU to justify its imminent import ban in terms of international trade law. The absence of international humane trapping standards would prevent Canada claiming exemption from the ban unless it adopted the EU's own ban on all jaw-type leghold traps. An earlier attempt to develop such standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) failed largely because animal rights groups removed the term "humane" from the standard.

In respose to Canada's request, the EU delayed implementation of the ban and started technical discussions with Canada, Russia and the US with the aim of developing "internationally agreed humane trapping standards".

By mid-1997, the EU, Canada and Russia had arrived at a definition of "humane" traps as meaning those which do not produce any of a list of 16 injuries and reactions, or which kill an animal in under 300 seconds. This definition is subject to review, and requires signatories (including the EU) to ban all traps after eight years that do not meet this standard for 19 species. Canada and the US have already committed substantial money and research to meet the testing schedule, and are awaiting a comparable show of commitment from the EU. Based on existing test results, Canada will prohibit on an accelerated basis the use of certain jaw-type leghold traps for the species found in its territory. The Agreement was signed in December 1997. For legal reasons, the US signed an almost identical agreement later.

Like any agreement, this one is not perfect and foresees improvements in the standard as new test results come in. From an animal welfare perspective, the agreement is a "first" as it requires traps to meet a "humane" standard. From a trade perspective, the agreement allows trade to continue between signatories, and resolves a long-standing dispute between Canada and the EU by setting a positive example.

Fox
UK: 240,000
Germany (incl. hunting): 530,000

Muskrat
Netherlands: 400,000
Germany: 240,000

Raccoon dog
Finland: 99,000

Stone marten
Germany: 49,000

Killing

• Fenn Mk II, IV, VI
• Springer IV, VI
• BMI Magnum (3 types)
• Fuller trap
• Juby trap
• Imbria
• Sawyer
• leghold trap (France)

Live capture

• Aldrich leghold snare
• cage traps
• restraining neck snare
• Bélisle leghold snare
• spring-powered leg snare

Contrary to claims by animal rights groups, traps are selective about the species they take. Following are some of the ways in which selective traps are set:

Trap type

• big or small
• trap design

Trap location

• tree, underwater, marsh, near animal food

Season

• different animal behaviour patterns

Bait/lure

• meat, urine, vegetable, visual

Screening

• trap in box with opening to exclude large species
• use of branches