Trapping is a barbaric practice that causes intense suffering for millions of animals each year. Although outlawed in Great Britain, trapping continues to receive government approval and support in the United States and many other countries. Trapping is allowed in over 90 "refuges" in our federal National Wildlife Refuge System.
Trappers sometimes try to justify their cruelty by claiming that trapping is a way to control rabies or wildlife overpopulation. According to the National Academy of Sciences, trapping reduces neither rabies incidence nor wildlife reservoirs.
Eighty-seven percent of animals trapped in the U.S. - approximately 40 million per year according to the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights - are victims of the steel-jaw leghold trap. The steel-jaw leghold trap is a spring-loaded trap designed to clamp around the leg of an animal who steps into it. Sometimes multiple traps are set in the same area to entrap more than one appendage. What does a leghold trap feel like? Friends
of Animals suggests that you can get a "feel for fur" by slamming your fingers in a car door.
Painful as leghold traps are, they aren't designed to kill their victims. Their purpose is to snare and hold the animal until the trapper can return to finish him or her off. By law, trappers are supposed to check traps every 48 hours, but there is little enforcement of this rule. Trapped animals may experience thrist, hunger, exposure to elements, and attack by other animals while waiting for the trapper to return to club or suffocate them.
Trapped animals also try in vain to free themselves from the trap. Those trapped for even a few minutes try to escape by struggling, gnawing at the trap, or gnawing at their own flesh, attempting to chew off the trapped paw(s). In one of its brochures, the Society for Animal Rights (now called International Society for Animal Rights, Inc.) quotes a Canadian Wildlife Service report as follows:
"The stomachs of (trapped) arctic foxes....often contain parts of their own bodies. They may swallow fragments of their teeth broken off in biting the trap, and sometimes part of a mangled foot; almost every stomach contains some fox fur, and a considerable number contain pieces of skin, claws, or bits of bone."
Others, ermine, and minks in particular sometimes struggle so violently to free themselves from the leghold trap that they kill themselves in the process. Animals who do succeed in escaping by chewing off their paws - as many as 27% for many species - are likely to suffer blood loss, infection, blood poisoning, or gangrene leading to death.
Animals unable to escape the trap must eventually face the trapper's return. In the booklet "Get Set to Trap", the California Department of Fish and Game instructs kids who are first-time trappers in the "proper" methods for killing wildlife, as follows:
"Most furbearers can be quickly and humanely killed by first sharply striking them on the skull (with a heavy iron pipe or an axe handle). It is highly recommended that the animal be struck two times, once to render it unconscious and again to render it either dead or comotose. To ensue death, pin the head with one foot and stand on the chest (area near the heart) of the animal with the other foot for several minutes....Furbearers trapped in
the water may also be struck on the head and then drowned."
In addition to the millions of targeted animals snared by leghold traps every year, five million "trash" animals - unintentional catches - also become victims of leghold traps. "Trash" animals include dogs, cats, and birds, among others. In one coyote-trapping program in the United States, leghold traps snared almost 10 times as many "trash" animals as coyotes. In this instance, "trash" animals included bobcat, golden eagles, and sheep. What happens to the "trash" animals unintentionally killed by leghold traps? In one instance, trappers sold cat corpses to a South Dakota man who paid them $2 per animal. The man then skinned the cats.
Due to its inherent cruelty, more than 70 countries have banned the leghold trap. The powerful fur, trapping, and gun lobbies have prevented the passage of similar legislation by the United States government. Still, some states have taken the initiative. New Jersey has banned its use, and other states, including Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Florida, and South Carolina, have placed restrictions on the use of leghold traps.
In addition to the leghold trap, trappers also sometimes employ a Conibear trap, named after its inventor. The Conibear is a "whole body" trap designed to snap shut around an animal's head, neck, or body, much like a conventional mousetrap. Although intended to kill its victim, the Conibear fails to do so in 40% to 60% of cases. Instead, trapped animals suffer slow, agonizing
deaths. The Humane Society of the United States reports that a Doberman who wandered into a Conibear trap suffered for as long as 18 hours with the trap clinched around her neck before she finally suffocated. There is nothing humane about these traps.
