In Spearfish, SD, the Game, Fish and Parks Department
(in that order, please) responded to the fatal trapping of a companion
dog by
asserting the dog shouldn’t have been around. Booper, the companion dog of
Jim Viergets, was killed by a bobcat trap set in the Harrison-Badger-Trucano
game production area.
GF&P supervisor, Mike Kintigh, said protecting pets is
secondary to providing hunting and trapping. “These areas were bought with
sportsmen’s dollars for the taking of game, both by hunting and trapping,”
Kintigh said. “We don’t want them on our property like that.” Viergets and
other neighbors of the 2,000-acre “game production area” say dogs frequently
use the area for play and exercise.
“If the land is just for hunting and trapping, that’s what
they need to tell you,” Viergets said. “It’s public land. We all pay for
it.”
