Call Your Legislators and Make a Difference

Highly regulated furbearer trapping seasons are important to reaching Massachusetts conservation goals and objectives

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How This Gets Done HOME

Promoting Science Based Wildlife Management Decisions for a Better Massachusetts

If writing an email is not your thing - picking up the phone and calling your Massachusetts state senator about Senate Bill 634, urging them to support it by cosponsering the bill is very effective.  Click on the button above to find you Legislators and contact info.  Asking them to advocate for the bill and, as a resident of the commonwealth you'll be doing your part to participate in the process.  Since this is a Senate bill, it must come out of the "Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources" with a favorable recommendation before a companion HOUSE bill is generated.  Until that happens, alerting your Representatives of the bill assigned to the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, and has your support.  You can still contact them, letting them know you are supporting this senate bill that currently resides in the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.  Make sure to check back to the MACRWM website to see the status of the bill.

When calling your legislators, you will end up speaking to one of their legislative aides.  Be prepared and write down the bullets on what you want to them them before making the call.  Bullets may look something  like this:

  • Calling to ask Senator [Last Name] to please support Sentate Bill 634 "An act conserving our natural resources"
  • Current trapping law is not working and no changes to law in the past 25 years have made things worse - beaver conflicts have not stopped and are still occurring
  • Have experienced beaver conflicts myself, know where they are still a problem or seen something in the news
  • The Bill provides much needed changes to the existing trapping law to make it more effective
  • Lets trappers us conibear type traps during the regulated season
  • Allows two new types of restraints that didn't exist when the existing law was enacted in 1996 (something called foot encapsulation devices and non-lethal cable restraints
  • Keeps health and safety situations within the Department of Health and Services
  • Gives relief to property owners, towns, municipalities and local Boards of Heath