overtrap
English edit
Etymology edit
Verb edit
overtrap (third-person singular simple present overtraps, present participle overtrapping, simple past and past participle overtrapped)
- To put too many traps in (an area) or among (an animal population), and thus to trap too many (animals, for their population to recover).
- 2005, Janet Palazzo-Craig, The Ojibwe of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, →ISBN, page 33:
- [...] from the Europeans, they began to overtrap the forests in search of pelts to trade. To overtrap is to kill too many animals, causing the animal population to decrease.
- 1950, Circular:
- Overtrapping can occur under some situations, but it has been the experience of trappers and marsh-owners generally that it is almost impossible to overtrap a normal muskrat population. It is far better to overtrap an area than to undertrap it. Keep populations of predators, as foxes, raccoons, and minks within reasonable limits. The annual drain on the muskrat by predators may become very serious.
- 1952, American Woodsman:
- [C]oyotes[,] particularly, will pull out if they happen to spot one of their own kind tangled in the traps. A smart one will vamoose even if it spots a trap sprung or a rabbit in it. That's one reason why you can overtrap a territory, too.