Search Trapping Incidents Database

Reported caught were companion animals and hunting dogs.

Humane Officer Joe Hunt received a call about a dog, trapped and drowning in the middle of the White River. Fearing he would never make it in time, he sped the 30 miles to Enumclaw, where he was forced to leave his van at the end of a dirt road and dash over a mile through the woods to reach the helpless dog. When Joe reached the river’s edge, he saw a black and gray dog with large panicked eyes looking up at him from the glacier-fed waters. Without hesitation, Joe went into the water. “I held onto the bank with one hand and felt under the water around the dog’s back legs. That’s when I found the [beaver] trap,” Joe said. “It was chained to the river bottom.” Joe worked to free Jake by trying to cut the chain. Joe fought the current and the numbing cold, making many trips to the river bottom to cut at the trap. Finally he was able to cut through the chain and bring the exhausted dog up onto the bank. “He wouldn’t have made it much longer. He would have drowned when his strength gave out.”

The trap was only 14 feet off the road, a short distance from Russell’s home.

A fox was caught by Animal Damage Control personnel.

Valentine and caregiver were jogging in a public park on the paved Mohawk-Hudson Bikeway. The trap was less than 50 feet off path. Valentine’s head clamped in trap for more than 90 minutes. Four people tried to get trap off, including two police. Animal Control Officer finally removed, but too late.

A fox was caught by Animal Damage Control personnel.

In a fenced area, a trapper had cut holes in the fence and set the trap to catch animals passing through. Tilly’s neck was caught in trap, and although she was freed — with swelling, bruising, cuts, and broken bones — her neck is permanently crooked.

A woman found her cat deep in the woods behind her house, caught in a steel trap that luckily didn’t have teeth. After about 10 hours in the trap, he suffered soft tissue damage and was in a cast for at least a month. “I was lucky to have found him,” she writes, “and it was on county park property.” She reported the incident to park authorities, and adds, “I think local rednecks were setting traps on park property because it’s one of the only large wooded areas in a densely populated area. Maybe they intended to trap muskrats or who knows what. I contacted the park and took someone to the site but the trap was gone … word about the incident had gotten out through neighbors and the trap was retrieved by the culprit.”

The cat dragged the trap until its 6-1/2-ft chain caught on a fence. The cat tried to chew off his leg to escape.

Traps set by federal biologists for adult wolf in Yellowstone National Park instead crushed pup’s leg. The trap was left unchecked for 2 days.