Search Trapping Incidents Database

“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.

The leg of a gray and white kitten approx 6 mos old was almost completely severed after getting caught in a leg-hold trap. The kitten was taken to the vet and her leg amputated.

In a forested area across the street from house, where kids and dogs play year ’round, a hunter threatened to kill the dogs if he saw them in the forest while he was hunting. The hunter set the traps within a week of making the threat. The dogs were caught in the traps and stayed overnight at the vet hospital, being unable even to drink water because of the swelling of their throats. Charges against the hunter are pending.

“I was walking with my 2 dogs near the woods when Brownie started yelping,” writes her caregiver. “The trap that got her was so old and rusty there was no ribber buffer left. I took me about a full minute to figure out how to get it off. I pulled the trap out of the ground and threw it in a nearby pond!” Brownie’s caregiver cleaned the wound with peroxide and bandaged it, deeming the wound not serious enough to require a vet visit.

On a street lined on both sides with houses, where most homes have companion animals, Mushy was found in a trap by person(s) unknown and put in the caregiver’s back yard for caregiver to find. The veterinarian said that Mushy had been in the trap for a while. “Both back legs were torn to shreds and the bone splintered and hanging out.” Mushy was put to sleep to end his suffering. In asking around the neighborhood, the caregiver could find no one who knew of any traps in the area. “Rumors started about middle school boys playing with traps just to see what they could catch.”

In a rural wooded area adjacent to within feet of residential backyard property, a woman saw the dog crawling and trying to paw what she thought was a muzzle of the contraption off her snout. When she approached to give the dog some water, it was discovered to be caught in a head trap. The SPCA was immediately alerted. The dog’s snout, neck, and mouth were pinned by the Conibear trap. The trap could not be removed at the scene. The dog died in transport to animal hospital. It took several SPCA workers to pry the trap from the dog’s head. The trap was set illegally set to catch groundhogs by a neighbor who neglected to warn neighbors in the surrounding area. Three other Conibear traps were found on his property. The man who set the trap claimed he had no idea the traps were illegal. Cats in the neighborhood have disappeared since the traps were set. Charges are expected to be filed before Magisterial district judge.

A woman and her sister often hiked on old logging roads in Department of Natural Resources land near Silverdale. On this occasiion, Freckles wandered off the trail and was caught in a Conibear trap, an instant kill underwater trap set illegally on land. “Though she struggled mightily against the iron bars holding fast her small neck, slowly Freckles was strangling to death. We had no idea how to free her and our tearing and clawing at the trap was to no avail. Finally, through sheer luck and primal strength born of fear and outrage, my sister and I were able to pry the bars apart sufficiently so that Freckles was able to pull her head out.”