You are hunting rabbits with your hunting dog on walk-in public lands. You are near a 2 hour walk from your vehicle, so you are deep in the sticks , so to speak. Suddenly, from a distance, you hear your dog yelp in pain. Upon finding your pet and hunting companion you find that it has been caught in a trappers trap. Unable to release the trap, your pet quickly expires. What do you do? The trap is a legal piece of equipment for trapping furbearers in your state. It is labled and appears to have been covered and placed correctly.Your pet, being a flushing breed, just followed it's nose. What would you do?

This scenerio recently occured here in Kansas, with the rabbit hunter and owner of the dog presenting his case to Kansas Wildlife and Parks committee to have trapping on walk-in hunting public lands made illegal.Is this fair of the rabbit hunter? What do you think the Kansas Wildlife and Parks committee should do? Is it not your responsibility as a hunter to know your state regulations, what other hunting seasons are going on and where other hunters might be?

If it's public lands, what is to stop a situation where a person can accidently get caught in such a trap? Or someone's kid? What if it was a family pet, instead of a hunting dog? It just seems awfully dangerous to leave these things unattended.

While it is true trapping illegally, or incorrectly can be dangerous, however, lands used for such purpose are rarely occupied by the general public. The title, Public Lands, is a bit misleading, they are not private property, hence, open to the public hunters for hunting and trapping access. This is undeveloped prairie, mountain, or forest land or farmland. Legally set traps are contained , and in most cases under water. They are also set long distances from roads, walk ways and fecnes. legally set traps are also inspected at least twice a day, and have been tested and designed to minimize non-furbearing animal / person capture.

Keeping all this in mind, My question was would it be fair of another hunter to take out his greif by asking authorities to remove privilages from legal citizens , without removing his own?