Hi Dan,

Just to play devils advocate here. Suppose NAFA had come out with a position paper on leg hold traps for eagles, do you think this would have prevented the folks in this eagle coop from using them and thus avoiding the whole debacle? Knowing how single minded falconers tend to be when it comes to obtaining a bird - especially for what most of those people in that coop was probably a once in a lifetime bird - I sort of doubt that NAFA's words would have had any effect on their trapping etiquette. Just a guess here, but how many of those people in the eagle coop were actually NAFA members, probably less than half, so they may never have heard an edict from NAFA had one been issued.

Wouldn't establishing a Wyoming based eagle falconers group through your state club and in conjunction with your game and fish department where WY eagle falconers such as yourself act as trapping guides been a better way of protecting the resource? The WY game & fish could make it part of their regulations for obtaining an eagle. I'm not an advocate of more regulation, but with such a limited resource like golden eagles having to jump through lots of hoops to obtain one is par for the course, and now the take is suspended.