One look at the sunset over Mount Rainier, the moon rising over Bainbridge Island, is reason enough to forget the rainy days and the moss on the roof. There is no better area that I've seen on my worldly travels that can compete with these sights. Richard McDonald's statement that Initiative 713 would ban the use of gill nets for commercial fishing is dead wrong. In fact, I-713 does not regulate or ban the use of any type of nets for any purpose. Last year, these traps were used to trap 12,412 bobcats, beavers, otters, mink and other furbearing animals in Washington.
Traps are cruel, causing tremendous suffering for their victims.
The initiative does contain exemptions, which allow traps to be used when trapping is necessary to ensure public health and safety, protect property, or livestock, safeguard threatened and endangered species, or conduct legitimate field research on wildlife. The wording of I-713 is clear, and its intent is unmistakable. It is a reasonable and common sense measure that will bring Washington's trapping policies into the 21st century. Property owners are being fleeced again. First, the county imposed severe limitations on any use of property close to a trickle of water.