I have long considered him as anti trapper for this reason.

He invented the principle of the bodygrip trap, but other manufacturers improved on it.

from a U Calgary paper.

"In 1961 Frank Conibear was presented the first Certificate of Merit by the American Humane Association, acknowledging his achievement. "

As I recall he used strong negativity about all foot hold traps to promote his invention at every opportunity. .

I have no interest in repeating the things he said here because they can be taken by the antis and used at any time. Let's just say when he spoke it sounded like it came right out of a PeTA handbook. He did major damage to trappers that we are still feeling to this day.

Very well spoken BB,
that is the way I remember too.

Bunch of bull.Well respected Canadian trapper and trap inventor.
Any trapper would know for a fact that he never said anything that wasn't true about the differences between footholds and bodygrips.
He was no antitrapper.His trap along with the invention of the snowmachine(also invented by a Canadian-Armand Bombardier) did more to advance trapping than anything before or since.
To call him an anti is nothing short of blasphemous.

There is a treasure of information about beaver behavior in The Wise One.

Bravo Boco!

Eric Collier worked closely with Frank Conibear helping with development of the trap. This was well documented with a series of stories in Outdoor Life magazine in the early '60 telling the story of Eric's early life, work to restore the beaver in British Columbia, and how he worked with Frank on research and development of his invention.

There was never a reward by an anti trappers group. I don't think CNN was around in the late '50's!

Thanks for sticking up for Frank.

You cannot change the past by denying it. I'm not saying he was an anti trapper. He said some things powered by greed that no trapper should have said. His words have been printed and reprinted in anti-trapping literature for decades. He used very poor judgement and it should be a lesson to us all.

I'm with Boco about this.

Thanks for your support.

Did he tell this from the beaver's view? anthropomorphism of the beaver? or is it told from the hunter's point of view? The reviews I read indicate the former.

Interesting read about the man.

But, he seemed to have crawled into bed with the antis.....

Canadian Assn for Humane Trapping is not anti trapping.It was on board with the Ontario Trappers Assn years ago,almost from the beginning to improve humane standards that trappers enjoy today.No Anti group has ever worked towards improving trapping-they all want to eliminate trapping.It has always been Trappers like Frank Conibear and Alcide Giroux,and Trapping organizations like the OTA that have worked towards more humane trapping tools and systems.
Neal Jotham of CAHT is one of the founding members of the FIC.They also support the trap testing facilities in Vegreville.

Wrong, he was just very brilliant in obtaining funds from the Anti's coffers (The Association for the Protection of Fur Bearing Animals) for the development of a trap very beneficial to the trapper.

It is from the point of view of the beaver, and it is indeed anthropomorphic because we are people, and we relate to animals through the perspective of people - but the literary perspective of the book is “omniscient author”. As someone who’s been trapping for 40 years, I can tell you that there is nothing “anti” about it. It is a tribute to an amazing animal, told with obvious wide breadth and deep depth of knowledge and understanding of beavers- knowledge that came from being taught by native people and colonists, AND lifelong observation while trapping and hunting beaver.

All true Bernie,

Whatever advancements to trapping Frank Conibear made by the invention of the trap were cancelled out by his badmouthing of trappers who used leghold traps.

Definitely a polarizing figure within the trapping industry.

w

He never said anything that was not factual about footholds compared to bodygrips at that time.
Thankfully for trapping many many improvements have been made.(all by trappers dedicated to humane trapping methods).
Good trappers continue to improve their tools-just look at the improvements to modern snaring methods,and you can see that trappers are still the drivers and innovators for humane trapping.