TL;DR: I want to start trapping but I'm worried about incidental catches with killer traps and I want to minimize as much suffering as possible for the trapped animal
.
Hi all, new member and first post. I live in North Idaho (Lake Pend Oreille area) and I'm thinking of starting trapping, mostly for beaver. Before I spend a day going through trappers ed just to learn it isn't for me, I'm hoping to gain some insight here first. Despite raising chickens, hunting, and fishing, I won't lie, I'm a major softy for animals. So the biggest hurdle I have getting started (besides the license and gear) is dispatching a trapped animal. I've done it before for pest control, but it wasn't something I liked doing. That leads me to only want to use killer traps like conibears, but I'm a bit concerned about incidental catches using a powerful trap like that. I'm also questioning if only using killer traps makes sense because I assume they aren't foolproof and might not actually kill every time. Is that true or are conibears generally pretty good for a quick death? I do know about snares and footholds for beaver sets in water, but a 330 seems faster and more humane than drowning.
.
I hope I don't need to say this, but I'm by no means judging the type of trapping you do so long as it's not poaching. I'm just trying to figure out what might work for me
