Commerical Fur Trapping
BOBCAT TRAPPING IS for PERSONAL PROFIT
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hunting & Live trapping Videos
These videos are extremely disturbing and difficult to watch but it is important to understand the suffering that these wild animals endure.
Trophy Hunting, Trapping and Killing Bobcats: The Methods
Hounding
The large majority are baited, caught in live cage traps, then killed, for the personal profit of selling the fur on the foreign fur fashion industry market in Russia and China.
Strangling, poison and bludgeoning
Historically most bobcats are killed by strangulation from a “choke stick,” poison, or bludgeoning to death, because trappers say they like to preserve the cleanest pelt.
"As a country we’re outraged at the poaching of elephants and rhinos in Africa that’s driven by China’s appetite for the illegal wildlife products. But here we are in America, killing wildlife legally for shipment to China — under conditions that are often cruel and inhumane."
By the Numbers
Unknown
4,000
Traps set out to catch bobcats in Colorado in one year.
30 bobcats
The body count required to make one fur coat.
$33.96
The cost of a small game or furbearera license that allows a bobcat hunter to kill as many bobcats as they want.
Unlimited
How many bobcat hunters and trappers may kill in Colorado during the season that runs from December 1 until the end of February every year.
Bobcats Trapped for Fur:
The Unethical Commercialization and Wrongful Exploitation of Colorado Wildlife
One of the ethical tenets of North America’s traditional wildlife management model, along with fair-chase, is that wildlife should not be killed for commerce.
But this is exactly what Colorado is doing by allowing the practice of trapping, killing and skinning bobcats just to sell their fur on the market.
It’s bad enough that we allow bobcats to be unethically chased by dog packs – just like mountain lions – and shot for recreation. The large majority of bobcats – about 2,000 each year – will die at the hands of a fur trapper, however, who will make $1,000 on a foreign market in China or Russia.
With a “furbearer” license around $30, trappers may kill as many bobcats as they want seasonally. They set thousands of traps in our wildlands every year – 4,000 one year alone – and are asked to check traps just once every 24 hours.
There’s no database tracking how many animals, or what kind of non-target animals have been trapped, injured, or killed in bobcat traps. We know that wild animals including bald eagles and domestic pets can and have been caught, injured, and killed due to exposure to the elements or while struggling to escape.
There is nothing to prevent mothers with dependent young from being trapped and killed, leaving orphans behind. Both bobcats and mountain lions can and do breed any time of year.
None of it makes any sense, because not only do we not know how many bobcats live in Colorado, but they are not the sole property of fur trappers, who are doing so much damage.
Trail camera footage courtesy of Dave Ruane, Colorado hunter and CATs coalition member. Read his letter in support of the citizen petition that was submitted to CPW asking them to ban recreational and commercial bobcat hunting and trapping.
Inhumane and unaccountable methods
Historically most bobcats are killed by strangulation from a “choke stick,” poison, or bludgeoning to death, because trappers say they like to preserve the cleanest pelt. Any rifle, handgun, shotgun, handheld bows, crossbows, or any air gun pre-charged can be used to kill a trapped bobcat on site, according to state guidelines. But there are clear allowances today in Colorado for trappers who wish to bludgeon a bobcat to death and keep the pelt clean from blood that spills after the cat is shot. There is zero oversight of the process in the field.
In California, where bobcats haven’t been hunted for three years, the populations are stable. In other states where bobcats are not trapped, such as Connecticut and New Jersey overpopulation is not an issue of concern.
Trapping unlimited bobcats when we have no statewide data or population count isn’t managing anything, not even trappers.
Fur trappers are nothing worth conserving. Consider that 700 trappers kill bobcats each year (0.01% of all Coloradans), and yet they contribute to the largest cause for bobcat mortality.