Update: This bill did not complete the legislative process prior to legislative adjournment.
Bill Description: If passed, this bill would modify existing animal cruelty laws to prohibit the use of snares and traps to capture or kill animals. The exception is that, if public health and safety were jeopardized, snares could be used.
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Leghold and Conibear traps and snares are arbitrary and antiquated. These devices case immense suffering as the animals they capture may die of dehydration, starvation, or predation from other animals if the trapper fails to check the device soon after the animal stumbles into it. Furthermore, these devices are not species-selective. They are an indiscriminate killing method that sometimes catches and kills non-target animals, including family cats and dogs and endangered species. One tragic example of the arbitrariness of these devices occurred in October 2003 in Maui, when a pregnant dog was caught and injured by 1 of 19 snares placed in Upcountry.