Search Trapping Incidents Database

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.

A woman was charged under the Criminal Code of Canada with two counts of causing unnecessary pain and injury to a cat, Snowflake. The Timmins & District Humane Society received a complaint from her neighbor saying that the family’s cat had been caught in a conibear trap (a body gripping trap traditionally used by licensed trappers) on the woman’s property. Snowflake’s guardians took him to a veterinarian where he was hospitalized for further observation and treatment before being sent home. Sadly, Snowflake had a poor response to therapy and his condition worsened. Less than a week after Snowflake was discharged he was brought back to the veterinarian and euthanized due to symptoms associated with severe head trauma.

Leroy was trapped by a steel jaw leghold trap and suffered sustained swelling, bruising, cuts. Amputation was considered but antibiotics healed the wounds and leg was left intact. They found the cat under a dumpster with the trap on him. He’d been caught near a creek behind his guardian’s house. It’s within city limits. Trap owner was not found and no one was charged.

Monty was caught in a snare trap for 5 days but survived. He now has a scar that goes all the way around his neck from where the snare cut into him like a knife.

After Grizzly went missing, her caregivers searched for hours without success. Before dawn the next morning they resumed the search, checking the nearby RV Park and Campground. The husband stepped into a trap on the edge of the pond, but managed to free himself. Five hours later they found Grizzly in the Park. Horrifying was that just a few feet away was Samson, their 5-month-old Bindle boxer cross adopted from a shelter, dead with a broken neck. Samson had disappeared just 5 days before. Apparently the trapper removed the trap from Samson and reset it. The owner of the RV Park denied all knowledge of the traps, then recanted and said they were set for beaver. The caregivers have absolutely no legal recourse.

“We live on a rural property. We have always had an open invitation to share trails. They set up traps without telling us only feet over the property line. From the trapping location you could hear our children playing in our yard.” The neighbors have never apologized or taken any responsibility for this.

The woman was walking in the forest when her dog stepped into a trap; when she attempted to open that trap, she stepped into a leghold trap. “I was wearing sandals at the time, and luckily was able to pull back quickly so the trap only grazed my toes, drawing some blood, before it clamped onto the end of my sandal,” she said.

In a wooded area behind their home, Candi’s caregivers walked her and another dog. While they went over to a pond that neighborhood children had recently filled with goldfish, Candi poked her head into a bucket that was tipped on its side. Candi’s caregiver watched in horror as the trap’s jaws clamped down on Candi’s head. Wrote the woman: “I was screaming hysterically. She was suffering and in much pain. My two children and I watched her eyes roll up in her head, she defecated, and she stopped moving. Her tongue lolled out. She was dead. We saw her die.” But the man found them and knew how to spring the trap. After 30 seconds when Candi didn’t move, he asked her if she wanted a treat and to go for a ride in the car. Her chest started to move and her tail wagged. “It truly was a miracle.”

While walking with caregiver and another dog 20 feet off a trail and on private propery, Lizzy went to sniff something at a den hole. Her head was immediately caught in the trap. In spite of valiant effors, she died in the man’s arms. He carried her home and cut the trap in order to remove it. While returning the trap with a note attached with contact info, he encountered the trap owner, who became very beligerant and said: “I don’t give a f— about your dog.” Lizzy’s caregivers believe the trap was set illegally by a den hole, untagged and an illegal trap by PA game commission regs.