Not only is it perfectly legal on the North American continent to litter entire landscapes with civilian landmines, this indiscriminate torture of wildlife, including endangered species, pets and domestic livestock, even is PROTECTED by the law - AS IF this atrocity would contribute ANYTHING to sustainable wildlife management, the balance of ecosystems or ANY other worthwile goal.
Trapping is done for two reasons - either sheer, irresponsible, unscrupulous GREED, torturing, ...killing and selling sentient beings for profits (which, by the way, is illegal in the USA for hunters) - OR as a "HOBBY", satisfying the perverted lust to torture, maim and kill living beings not protected by law.
What trappers FREQUENTLY do to their victims would get them into jail if done to their own dog in their own backyard.
Please THINK about that for a moment.
And still, if they have got their LICENSE, after having paid the prescribed blood money to the proper authorities, they are free to do about ANYTHING to whatever has the bad luck to get caught in their medieval torture devices... And they NEVER are responsible for ANY damages they do, be it to endangered species or to somebody's cat or dog.
Quote from the article: "Ross [a trapper in Juneau] says trappers follow a code of ethics and go to great lengths to reduce the possibility of trapping nontarget animals, but he says they’re guidelines. Trapping is ultimately about good judgment."
EXCUSE ME - a "code of ethics"? And "good judgement"? ARE we talking about the SAME activity here?
Setting traps practically ON hiking trails, or right next to human settlements, camping sites or frequented parking lots? Accepting up to 300 percent "by-catch" (three NON-targeted victims for every animal they intended to catch) - or, as they themselves so aptly name it, TRASH animals, either released to slowly die of the sustained wounds in the wild or massacred and disposed of in the next ditch? Setting traps and coming back after days or even weeks - IF, at all - to see what kind of carcass might be in them? Wire snares are cheap enough to just forget about them... and a nice, strong leghold trap will reliably hold whatever stepped into it until the trapper bothers to return to it...
We ARE NOT talking about in ANY way "ethical" human beings here. We are talking about perverted psychopaths, sorry.
No matter how "nice" and "friendly" and even "charming" they might seem and how "reasonable" they try to sound, they ARE DEEPLY SICK individuals.
There is only ONE thing MORE sick than those trappers: The politicians and judges UPHOLDING the insane protection of this medieval atrocity.