The Trapping Victims’ Fund
Traps are indiscriminate – they catch and kill targeted and non-targeted animals – including family cats and dogs as well as threatened and endangered species. Animals who survive may suffer severe physical injuries that require costly veterinary treatment and lengthy rehabilitation.
Born Free USA helps cover the cost of care for individual animals impacted by cruel traps through the Trapping Victims’ Fund. Funds are available for specific and immediate emergency veterinary care for companion animals impacted by traps. In the worst of circumstances, funds are also available for funeral arrangements.
Trapping Victims’ Fund funds are available on a case-by-case basis (to be determined by Born Free) to individuals whose animals are injured or killed by traps or snares. Funding also is available for animal shelters or Good Samaritans who take in and care for a domestic animal victimized by a body-crushing trap or strangulation snare.
Want to apply for the Fund? Please complete the form to apply for compensation. If you know of someone whose companion animal was injured in a trap, please send this webpage to them and encourage them to apply for assistance.
Want to support the Trapping Victims’ Fund? Your donation ensures that, if a dog, cat, or other companion animal falls victim to a cruel trap, their family will have crucial financial support to help cover medical and rehabilitative care.
Apply for Compensation
To apply for Trapping Victims’ Fund compensation, please complete the form below, providing all requested information and documentation. We will review each submission. If you are having trouble viewing the form below, please click here.
Photo gallery
Fund Recipients
Posie
Posie, a labradoodle, was caught in a leghold trap and suffered a massive wound on her leg, which led to a five-hour emergency surgery. Though Posie survived her encounter with a cruel and dangerous leghold trap, she may eventually require amputation.
Bruce
Bruce, the lovable, fluffy Great Pyrenees, was found on the side of the road on a cold Michigan day. His family was ecstatic to have him back after weeks of searching, but horrified to see the condition he was in. Exhausted, injured, and scared, Bruce had been caught in a leghold trap for over a week.
Champ
Champ, a sweet dog with big kind brown eyes, was in excruciating pain. He was caught in a steel-jaw leghold trap set in a residential area in Asherton, Texas.
Charlie
Charlie, a gorgeous brown tabby cat, was nowhere to be found on Christmas Eve.
Sadie
Sadie, a lab mix, was injured by a trap near her home in South Carolina.
River
River, a Great Pyrenees, was hardly recognizable when a good Samaritan found him.
Maggie
In early 2020, Maggie, a Great Pyrenees puppy, had the misfortune of being caught in a leg-hold trap in Tennessee.
Great Horned Owl
In early 2020, a great horned owl was caught in an illegal leg-hold trap in Massachusetts.
Roxy
On December 10, 2015, Patti Foy and her husband, Dana, were taking their usual walk with their two dogs along a trail north of the Gilman tunnels in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. They stopped short when they heard their Border Collie mix, Roxy, cry out in pain and alarm…
Max
A woman in Grantville, PA, had been feeding and taking care of an abandoned cat named Max for the previous six months when he suddenly disappeared in April 2013. After three week passed, she finally found Max hanging from the floorboard underneath the mobile home with his front paw caught in a foot-hold trap…
Tréa
In late 2012 we took $320 from the fund to pay for the initial veterinary expenses incurred for the treatment of Tréa, a young black Labrador stray dog from Princeton, MN.
J.J.
In the spring of 2012 we tapped into our Trapping Victims Fund to help Myra Combs, a resident of Mount Airy, NC. Her family’s cat, J.J., was caught in a body-crushing Conibear trap on a neighboring property…
Valiant
Born Free USA sent money from the Trapping Victims Fund Valiant in early 2011 to the human companion of Valiant, a cat from Maryland, who was found dragging a leghold trap that had nearly severed his foot…
Dozer
In early 2011, Rose Kirby’s dog Dozer got caught in a trap on a neighboring property and suffered broken bones, puncture wounds in his leg, and had to have his tail amputated after painfully releasing himself from the trap…
Donate to the Trapping Victims' Fund!
Help ensure that the families of dogs, cats, and other companion animals who fall victim to cruel traps will have the financial resources to provide medical and rehabilitative care.
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