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Why Moon’s Law needs a close review
By Mark Hall
Op-Ed Commentary
Some laws develop out of a painful place of grief: a grief powerful enough to create urgency, outrage, and a sense of moral mission. That is exactly what happened after Moon was killed in a legally set commercial trap.
One moment, a companion animal was trotting down a familiar industrial road; the next, it had been caught in a device meant for wildlife, not a family pet. The shock was immediate. The grief was profound. And the reaction was the same one we see after drunk‑driving deaths, dog attacks on children, or rare wildlife encounters: this should never happen again.
From that heartbreak emerged the idea now being called Moon’s Law: a sweeping set of new trapping restrictions intended to prevent similar tragedies. The intention is understandable. The grief is real. But the law deserves careful examination.
Grief is a powerful driver of change. However, it should not be the sole basis for making laws. Psychologists have shown that emotionally charged incidents can strongly influence our thinking, making certain risks appear more significant than they might otherwise seem. When something tragic happens, it has the capacity to shape public perception and policy discussions in ways that may not always reflect a measured or balanced approach.
This is why victim-driven legislation is so common. When tragedy strikes, grief seeks meaning. It seeks a target. It seeks a way to transform pain into purpose. That emotional alchemy often becomes moral outrage, and moral outrage becomes a demand for systemic change. Political scientists have a name for this pattern: survivor advocacy, or victim legislation.
These laws carry enormous moral weight. But they often arise from emotional salience, not statistical risk.
Sociologists studying risk perception describe how dramatic events, sympathetic victims, media amplification, and the presence of a clear villain, even if that villain is simply circumstance, combine to create risk amplification. The public begins to perceive a threat as far larger and more common than it truly is.
And when the victim is a pet, the emotional force intensifies. Pets occupy a unique place in our lives: they are family members, innocent beings who cannot defend themselves, and symbols of unconditional trust. Their suffering feels morally pure. So, when a pet is killed, by another dog, a wild animal, a vehicle, or a trap, the owner’s grief often becomes a moral crusade.
But this emotional power creates tension in policymaking. It can lead to overreactions, laws based on uncommon events, symbolic legislation that feels good but fails to address the underlying issue, and misaligned risk priorities that focus on what is emotionally vivid rather than what is statistically significant. Wildlife policy, dog-control laws, and firearm regulations have all swung dramatically after single tragedies for exactly these reasons.
None of this diminishes the painful loss of Moon. It is significant, heartbreaking, and deserving of my empathy. But the question is not whether grief matters. It does. The question is whether Moon’s Law will make pets safer.
We owe Moon compassion. And we owe the public clarity. Two truths can exist at once: Moon’s loss is tragic and deserving of sympathy, and good policy must be grounded in data rather than emotion alone.
The danger of grief-driven legislation is not that it comes from the heart: it is that it can overwhelm the head. When a single tragedy becomes the lens through which we view an entire practice, we risk misunderstanding the problem and implementing a solution that does little to prevent future harm.
There is another uncomfortable layer to this conversation, one that has little to do with Moon’s grief and everything to do with how certain advocacy groups respond to tragedies like this.
Anti‑trapping and anti‑hunting organizations often seize on emotionally charged incidents to advance long‑standing campaigns against rural practices. The same individuals and groups who blamed victims in a recent grizzly bear attack, and who publicly attacked anyone suggesting that regulated hunting might reduce future conflicts, are now positioning themselves as champions of safety in the wake of Moon’s passing. Their outrage shifts depending on which narrative serves their broader agenda.
The juxtaposition is striking. When Conservation Officers attempt to trap a bear after an attack, these groups condemn the very tools and techniques used to protect the public. Yet when a pet is tragically caught in a trap, they present trapping as an unmitigated threat that must be eliminated entirely.
In one context, trapping is portrayed as cruel and unnecessary; in another, its existence becomes a rallying point for sweeping bans. The inconsistency reveals something important: the goal is not community‑based solutions or neighbours helping neighbours, but the dismantling of practices they oppose on ideological grounds.
This pattern becomes even clearer when looking at how some of these organizations treat trappers themselves. Many have engaged in targeted campaigns against individual trappers, encouraging online harassment, public shaming and illegally tampering of their traps. Yet when regulations require that personal information not be posted on public signage, a measure designed to protect people from exactly that kind of harassment, these same groups cry foul.
Their concern is not transparency; it is leverage. They want names, not for accountability, but for activism.
There is also a striking contradiction in how some anti‑trapping organizations frame their arguments. For years, these groups have insisted that certified killing traps, devices tested under the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards and engineered to produce an immediate, irreversible loss of consciousness, are inherently inhumane. Yet these same traps were developed precisely to replace older, less predictable methods and to ensure the quickest possible death for targeted wildlife. They represent the most humane trapping technology ever created.
At the same time, these organizations routinely condemn modern non-killing restraining traps as cruel, despite the fact that certified soft‑hold designs are built to minimize injury and allow for the safe release of non‑target animals.
But in the wake of Moon’s tragedy, many of these groups now demand the removal of killing traps altogether and advocate instead for the very soft‑hold devices they have spent years portraying as unacceptable. Their position shifts not because the underlying science has changed, but because the narrative advantage has.
This inconsistency reveals a deeper truth: the goal is not to improve animal welfare or reduce risk in a balanced, evidence‑based way. The goal is to eliminate trapping entirely, and any tragedy, no matter how rare, becomes an opportunity to advance that agenda.
When killing traps exist, they are condemned as cruel. When soft‑hold traps exist, they are condemned as cruel. And when a pet is tragically caught in a trap, the solution proposed is not better collaboration between citizens in a community, but the removal of whichever tool is most politically vulnerable in that moment.
Moon’s loss deserves empathy, not ideological opportunism. And British Columbians deserve policies grounded in consistent principles, not shifting arguments designed to dismantle long‑standing wildlife management practices one device at a time.
Moon’s tragedy deserves compassion, not co‑option. And communities deserve solutions grounded in evidence and safety, not opportunistic narratives that shift with the political winds.
Moon’s story should spark conversation, reflection, and a renewed commitment to safety. But it should not, on its own, dictate the shape of law. Grief can inspire change. It should not replace reason.
e-KNOW file photos
– Mark Hall is the Executive Director of The Wild Origins Canada Foundation. He is a member the Sustainable Use Livelihood Working Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
