Search Trapping Incidents Database

EAST HAVEN, CT – When Short Beach Road resident Peter Cianelli’s Ring camera alerted him to motion on his property last month, he saw a sight he’d never expected: a coyote dragging a large, heavy foothold trap on their leg. That’s when he and his family sprang into action and called animal control, starting a more than two-week saga. Since the initial Jan. 19 sighting, state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection workers came to his East Haven home three times over the course of three days, trying to capture the injured animal, but were unsuccessful, he said. Local animal control lent Cianelli a dog trap, which he said the coyote would not go into because it was too small.

NEW KENT COUNTY, VA – A pregnant dog is still fighting to survive after officials say she was caught in a cable snare trap in New Kent County, causing her head to swell and putting her puppy at risk. On Monday, Jan. 19, a severely injured, pregnant female dog was picked up along Eltham Road near its intersection with New Kent Highway. She was first spotted over the weekend, but was finally captured on Monday.

The dog had a metal wire wrapped around her throat “so tightly that it caused immense swelling to her head [and] disabled her ability to breathe properly,” the New Kent County Sheriff’s Office’s Animal Protection Unit said on Facebook. The wire caused “a disgusting amount of damage,” putting both her and her puppy’s lives in jeopardy. The dog, who has since been named Maude, began receiving emergency medical care on Monday, but there is quite a long road ahead of her. “Based on her injuries, we believe Maude may have suffered with this cable around her neck for some time,” officials said in an update on Facebook. “The pain she endured is heartbreaking. Our team is doing everything possible to save her, but at this time, she is not out of the woods.” Her unborn puppy remains safe at this time.

Under Virginia law, traps like these are meant to be checked every 24 hours, animal officials said. They are also meant to have a failsafe to ensure incidents like what happened to Maude do not happen.

SOLDOTNA, AK – Two dog-walking Soldotna residents are fighting a pair of unusual federal fines after getting in an argument with a fur trapper in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge last year. Laura McIndoe and Trafford Evanoff appeared in federal court Tuesday this week to enter “not guilty” pleas and formally challenge $280 per-person tickets issued by a refuge officer for interfering with an authorized trap line. Further hearings are scheduled for later in the spring.

The citations facing McIndoe and Evanoff do not identify the trapper, who was not fined. The injured dog also was not named. According to the citations, the trapper called a Fish and Wildlife Service officer after McIndoe’s dog became caught in one of the trapper’s foothold traps and McIndoe became “very upset and cursed at him, telling him to stay away.” “He said the woman told him that her sons were in their 30s and big men, and if they see him, they will kill him,” said the affidavit, signed by officer Shay Hurd.  Two of the trapper’s other traps were destroyed, and the trap that snared the dog was lost.

According to Hurd’s affidavit, McIndoe said “the dog was doing better” two weeks after the incident, “after a large vet bill.” The trapper had a permit to work within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, correctly marked their trap line with a warning sign, and placed the trap line in a valid area more than one mile away from the road, according to Hurd’s account. McIndoe was cited for “interfering with persons engaged in authorized activities” in the refuge, as was Evanoff, who was identified as her son.

ROCKLAND, NY – New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) recently rescued two young black bears from leg-hold traps in the Catskills. On November 18, a trapper notified ECOs about two yearling black bears stuck in foothold traps within a few feet of each other in the town of Rockland, Sullivan County, NY.

ECO Johnson and Lieutenant Lattimer responded to the location and met with the licensed trapper who was legally trapping bobcats when he accidentally trapped the bears. Each bear had a front paw trapped in the footholds and was unable to escape. ECO Johnson pinned one bear down using a catchpole while Lieutenant Lattimer used a piece of plywood as a shield, allowing the trapper to safely access the bear’s front paw and free it. They successfully repeated the process with the second bear and both animals ran off into the woods.

LONG ISLAND, NY – Axel is currently under the care of Ollie’s Angels Animal Rescue, and has been since Dec. 2023. Axel ended up at the foster-based animal welfare organization based in Long Island, New York, after a journey of “incredible resilience and heartbreaking hardship,” according to Ollie’s founder, Melissa Bielawski.

Before moving to Ollie’s, Axel was living as a stray in South Carolina and ended up caught in a trap. “After being caught in a trap, he chewed off the end of his own foot to free himself. He was then taken to a South Carolina high-kill shelter, where his injuries were so severe that he was placed on the immediate euthanasia list,” Bielawski tells PEOPLE. Thankfully, before euthanizing the dog, the South Carolina shelter reached out to Ollie’s to see if the rescue could take on Axel’s case.

“When the shelter reached out to us, we saw the sweetness in his eyes and knew he didn’t deserve to die. Despite knowing we would face extremely expensive medical care ahead, Axel was brave enough to save himself from the trap, so we chose to follow in his footsteps and give him the chance he deserved,” Ollie’s founder adds.

“His ears were cropped, he was painfully thin, and heartworm positive, a fatal condition if left untreated. He likely had to scavenge just to survive, and eventually, his foot was caught in a trap, whether by accident or by design, leading to his arrival at a high-kill shelter,” Bielawski explains. Ollie’s provided Axel the medical care he desperately needed, starting with heartworm treatment and an operation to amputate a part of Axel’s injured leg that was making the dog uncomfortable. Despite all of his medical procedures, Axel has remained a loving dog the entire way through.

Axel has gone from a “sick, weak, and painfully thin dog” to an energetic and confident canine who has mastered navigating the world in his donated wheelchair. He is still waiting to find his forever home. To learn more about Axel and submit an adoption application, visit Ollie’s Angels Animal Rescue’s website.

In a late July press release, CPW said the federal government concluded the wolf died in northwest Colorado “due to an apparent secondary trauma” caused by a legal foothold trap set for a coyote. In response, the state wildlife agency suspended 30-day permits for the traps, which livestock producers sometimes use to remove predators threatening sheep or cattle.

It’s unclear how long the wildlife agency plans to maintain the statewide moratorium.

In a late July press release, CPW said the federal government concluded the wolf died in northwest Colorado “due to an apparent secondary trauma” caused by a legal foothold trap set for a coyote. In response, the state wildlife agency suspended 30-day permits for the traps, which livestock producers sometimes use to remove predators threatening sheep or cattle.

It’s unclear how long the wildlife agency plans to maintain the statewide moratorium. In a written statement, Travis Duncan, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson, said state officials will provide additional guidance “as soon as possible.”