Search Trapping Incidents Database

On a “very busy” trail designated by the Bureau of Land Management as a hiking/recreation trail leading to the Rio Bonito petroglyphs, Bear caught his coat and a bit of his flesh in a leghold trap. Bear ran and lost the trap within one minute, suffering only mild bruising. The trap was one of nine traps located immediately off road, 3 to 20 feet from the road edge. Only two traps had faint 4-digit markings and all traps, according to game warden, were of the illegal type (not offset jaw type).

A woman was walking her dog Bear on a well traveled forestry road close to homes when he went ahead of her up a trail they often used. Bear cried in pain several times and the woman discovered him head first in a Conibear trap. “There was nothing I could do to get him out,” she writes, “and I had to stand there and watch him die. I am traumatized and sick with grief.” Bear was in the trap only a couple of minutes.

On the border of two residential developments, a licensed trapper set “bear” traps with fresh deer meat. In less than 36 hours three dogs separately left their homes, one of them, Boreal, breaking her metal chain. “Boreal’s 20-foot chain was found tangled around a tree a few yards in front of the traps. Somehow she destroyed her collar to set herself free. Maybe it was the -20 temperature or the fatigue of the struggle that sent her home. Maybe she could not longer smell the meat, now frozen. Maybe she was just lucky. The traps were already full.” Roxy and Inuk’s bodies were found in a play space for children, in a wooded area with forest trails linking between friends’ houses. The trapper has the right as a Quebec property owner and licensed trapper to put down traps, but the residents are outraged “that he laid the traps on the border of our family community not only drawing predators in but drawing our pets out and killing both wild and tame dogs.”

Only 150 yards from his home, on private property across a river, Joe died shortly after being caught in the trap. It took 24 hours to locate him. Although avid trail hikers who welcome dogs on their hikes, Joe’s caregivers now feel this activity has been taken away from them. “According to the DNR, there could be hundreds of these [traps] in this area. The traps are hidden in makeshift logs, and baited.” The woman who reported this incident wrote, “My husband and I would be harassed if we spoke out publicly in the area. The majority of the hunters in this area poach and do not follow specific any specific laws.” The trap was not illegal.

Jeffrey’s guardian was walking him close to the water’s edge in a town nature preserve when Jeffrey stuck his head into some brush where the trap was hidden. “The pet owner arrived in our office frantic with the trap on the dog’s head,” said a representative from the Animal Rescue Fund in Wainscott. Jeffrey, which ARF rescued from the Bahamas after Hurricane Francis in 2004, was killed. The trap appeared to be illegal, its target probably muskrat.

Zoe was a certified therapy dog who worked with at-risk youth in a wilderness program. She was hiking on a public road with a girls’ group when she was killed by the cyanide trap. The trap was 10 feet from the road at the most. A federal government trapper placed the trap on the private property at the rancher’s request. Zoe’s caregiver is contemplating a lawsuit against the USDA’s Wildlife Services for not following guidelines of placement of M-44 traps (no closer than 50 feet from a public road or path and no closer than 200 feet from a public stream).

A local resident found the young adult bobcat on his 4-acre property, hiding under a bush. On the end of the chain opposite the trap, the prongs that are designed to secure the trap had obviously come loose from whatever it had been attached to, and became hung up in a chain near the man’s driveway. A Game and Fish officer speculated that the bobcat may have been walking down the paved street, dragging the trap, and spooked by a car darted for the driveway.

Dixie’s guardian was heading outside to let her back into the house when he realized that she had gotten away from the yard. As he headed across the street, he found Dixie crawling up a ditch with an animal trap around her neck, fighting for her life. Dixie died a short time later. The trap had no identification, so it couldn’t be traced to anyone. Sheriff deputies then questioned the neighbor but said they could not prove anything. One of the man’s neighbors says two of his dogs were murdered and thinks that the man who he believes is responsible, actually admitted to him that he traps and buries neighborhood pets. Sheriff deputies said they could not prove anything.

The Tyrone Tramps, a local hiking club, was when one of the members’ dogs was caught in a trap set in the middle of a well used trail up a dry wash. Another member reported that everyone in the group was upset by the incident and that the person who was able to free the dog from the trap angrily threw it into the bushes.

In the Greenbelt Nature Preserve in Suffolk County, a Conibear trap was set in a 5-gallon bucket 50 feet from a trail by the edge of the water. Zephyr, who was rescued from Hurricane Frances in 2004 by the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, was in the trap only two minutes, but that was long enough to kill. The owner of the trap was cited for not having a tag on the trap.