Senate bill restores some animal trapping

OLYMPIA – Landowners would not need a permit to use body-gripping traps to catch moles, gophers and other specified nuisance animals, under a bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday, modifying a voter-approved ban on most animal trapping.

The bill passed on a 40-8 vote. It now heads to the House.

By passing Initiative 713 in 2000, voters banned most animal trapping and commercial sales of pelts, agreeing with animal-welfare activists that the practice is cruel and inhumane. But almost immediately, the initiative’s sponsors sought help from the Legislature to allow trapping of the moles and gophers that were provoking public outcry by tearing up suburban lawns, parks and golf courses.

“We have athletic fields we are not able to use now because of moles,” Sen. Bob Oke, R-Port Orchard, sponsor of the bill, said on the floor before Tuesday’s vote. “We just don’t have the control that we need to have.”

The bill also restores some commercial sale of trapped fur, a key for opponents of the ban because it drives down the cost of removing animals that threaten livestock and other property.

Some argue the bill goes too far and conflicts with the “will of Washington voters.”

The Humane Society of the United States does support tightening the language concerning gophers and moles, but a spokesman said this bill is an “outright gutting” of the initiative.

“This isn’t a compromise,” said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based organization. “It doesn’t address the specific concerns that need to be addressed. It opens the door for widespread trapping.”