Cat Caught in Kill Trap in West Virginia

Summary:

PARSONS, WV – An incident occurred on Spruce Street in March involving the purposeful trapping of a cat in a Conibear kill trap on the sidewalk. The incident first came to light on Facebook through the “We Are Parsons – West Virginia” community page when Seth Roy posted a picture to the page with the telling of the incident.

A witness to the incident said that she was on the phone and en route to her sister, Melissa Coker, when her sister’s teens and a teen friend found and attempted to assist the cat. The teens at first thought they heard a cat fight and went to investigate and break up the fight when they made the discovery of the cat with their head caught in a Conibear trap on the sidewalk under a truck owned by Darrell (D.L) Tasker, a neighbor.

Over the course of a half hour, three teens attempted to pry the cat free until the trap was open, just wide enough for the girl to push the cat’s head free. Once released from the trap, the cat ran off into the darkness. No one was able to catch the animal. The teens were crying during the incident. Tucker County Sheriff Jake Kopec said that all agencies responded to the incident. The call was initially dispatched to City Police, but the Sheriff’s Department has jurisdiction over the whole of Tucker County. Along with City and County, Animal Control also responded.

Evans claimed the property owner had placed the trap under his truck on a public sidewalk within City limits. Other claims Evans made included that the property owner leaves cat food on his property for cats to lure them to the property and that prior to this incident, he had only used live traps. There is a City Ordinance in effect that states that if an individual is trapping cats, that only non-lethal methods can be employed. “Obviously that style of trap that was used, was not a non-lethal trapping method,” Tucker County Animal Shelter Director Stacey Canfield said. “So that would fall under either the Sheriff’s Department or City Police.”

The owner of the cat wished to remain anonymous due to backlash from the community from people claiming the incident was his fault because his cat got out of the house. The incident remains under investigation.

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