Trapping

Crushing Cruelty: Animal Trapping in the United States (2021)

Crushing Cruelty: Animal Trapping in the United States amends and updates work carried out in 2017 and provides each state with a score out of 100 based on its action to protect animals from cruel trapping. The report’s findings present a sobering insight into trapping in the U.S., which causes suffering and death to millions of animals each year, and reveals the need for a ban on trap sales, a complete regulatory overhaul of trapping nationwide – including an immediate end to trapping on public lands – and for plans to be implemented to move towards generalized prohibition of trapping across the nation.

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Main Findings

Trapping prohibition and regulation is lacking across the U.S.

The report provides each state with a score out of 100 based on its action to protect animals from cruel trapping. Only two states scored above 50/100, and almost half of the states scored just 25/100 or under.

Traps – even those that are illegal to use in all 50 states – are widely available online.

Traps are available for sale without restriction on online e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, often without any mention of state regulations, prohibitions, or legal requirements for their use.

Trapper education courses promote cruel killing methods.

Many states require would-be trappers to complete education courses ahead of licensure. Worryingly, multiple states promote cruel drowning as a “humane” killing method for trapped animals, despite it being specifically stated by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) that this drowning is categorically inhumane. In addition, advice for killing trapped animals found in commercially available trapping guides suggest that using wooden clubs to beat trapped animals to death is standard practice.