Search Trapping Incidents Database

A cat caught in a steel-jaw trap on the city’s west side was euthanized by the Oshkosh Area Humane Society to put it out of its misery from a badly broken back leg. “There was no salvaging that cat. He was in horrible, horrific pain,” said Joni Geiger, director of the animal shelter. Police were called by a resident who found the cat in the trap in his yard. The trap did not belong to the person who called police. It was the type of trap someone would use to trap small game in the wild. Police have not cited anyone and they don’t have any suspects.

A retired sled dog survived with minor injury the crushing jaws of a conibear trap set less than 10 feet off a trail near town. A woman who was training a second dog team for her kennel partner (signed up to run the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in March) noticed that Lucy had broken her chain and was following the team. The woman let the dog run loose and then, less than two miles from residential areas, heard Lucy start screaming. Lucy was roughly seven feet off the road, lying on her side still screaming, having stumbled into a trap set in the crook of a tree root. Slammed on her neck was a large conibear trap. The woman couldn’t free Lucy from the trap and set off with the team to get help. Lucy spent more than an hour in the trap before the kennel partner and a third friend arrived with bolt cutters and released her. A Fish and Game technician said the trap was legally set but questioned the experience of the person who set it.

The owl was found stuck in a rusty leghold trap in Moodus by a wildlife rehabilitators, who cared for the owl over Thanksgiving. The owl was emaciated, having been impaired for a long time and unable to hunt. The veterinarian the woman brought the owl to the morning after Thanksgiving determined that the owl’s injury was so severe, its foot would have to be amputated and it would never be released. In keeping with federal law, the owl was euthanized.

On Thanksgiving Day, a man and his nephew “were wandering along the riverbank just off the trail” that runs alongside the Big Flat irrigation ditch near the confluence of the Bitterroot and Clark Fork rivers. Their two dogs, a Norwegian Elkhound and a little Schnauzer, were nosing about nearby. “Suddenly there was an odd ‘thump’ followed by frantic yelping. My dog Rontu … had gotten caught in a leg-hold trap.” The dog, freed by the man, suffered no more than a serious sprain. The trap was apparently set illegally, and, incredibly, it was already re-set when the man, who had gone home to check up on the dog, returned to the scene to investigate.

While a man was cutting firewood “earlier this month,” he “heard the most bloodcurdling scream and howling of a hurt animal” over the sounds of his chainsaw. He looked down the hill and saw this 10-month-old shelter dog, Buddy, caught in a leghold trap. On his third try he was able to release Buddy, but not before suffering a number of dog bites. When he was finally free, “my poor little dog ran in circles for about a minute yelping in pain.” The man added, “That night I thought how lucky I was to be able to find him and free him from the steel trap. It was a very awful experience. I thought of others who might not have had the strength to open the trap. I can’t imagine leaving your dog in pain like that and driving to find help. I thought of wild animals that get caught in traps and suffer for hours until the trapper comes up and kills them. I thought this should not be legal.”

A couple of kids were hiking with their dog near the Metacomet Trail when the dog went close to the water, stuck her nose in a box to smell it, and got caught in a Conibear trap. Other traps nearby were just lying in the water. The 17-year-old boy managed to get Rosie out of the trap with the help of a cousin to pull the trap apart, but it was too late. The incident was reported to Fish & Game. In the past the same trapper has killed beavers and blue heron, and all local wildlife is gone; Rosie’s caregiver complained last year but got nowhere. It is not yet known if the trap owner was in violation of local permits.

Out hunting rabbits just south of Thompson Creek on public hunting land owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a deputy Salina police chief heard his dog yelp. “At first, I thought she was in a fight,” he said. But Bella was caught in the rectangular steel jaws of a conibear trap. He struggled frantically to free her. “I had read how to get them off. I’m afraid all my efforts did was prolong the agony of her death,” he said. “It was incredibly devastating.” Bella became weaker, and then fell unconscious. Within six minutes, she was gone. The trap was set in a plastic bucket to entice the curiosity of a raccoon, coyote or bobcat. When an animal sticks its head in the bucket, the trap is tripped. So it was that Bella, curious as she patrolled for rabbits, was captured by the powerful jaws. The trap was legal.

25 feet off a plowed access road (owned by the Alaska Railroad) in a popular dog-walking area near residences, the trap was chained to a tree. When the dog was caught in the trap, she screamed and writhed. Her caregiver writes: “I figured out a way to detach the trap from the tree it was chained to. We got our dog to the car still in the trap [and] drove her to a trapper’s house who cut the conibear off her head with a pneumatic power saw.” Luckily, after 90 minutes in the trap Kisses survived, losing only a couple of broken teeth. The incident was reported to and Alaaka State Wildlife Trooper and an Alaska Railroad Safety officer. The owner of the trap was not found.

A bill before the Nebraska state legislature earned a uniquely qualified witness when a Lancaster County Commissioner stepped into a Conibear trap placed in a ditch near his farm. He was wearing good boots and wasn’t seriously hurt. But the trap was large enough to catch a coyote or a beaver — even a farmer — and the commissioner couldn’t open it with his hands. So he hobbled to his truck for a crowbar. He reported the incident to the state Game and Parks Commission. The trap’s owner could not be traced because the trap did not have an ID number. The commissioner, of course, testified against the bill, which sought to eliminate restrictions and penalties for trapping wildlife in county road rights-of-way. (The ban went into effect on 05/05/09: Lincoln Journal Star, 05/05/09)

A springer spaniel hunting dog got caught in a cable restraint trap left for wildlife set approximately 10 feet off trail. The dog was released with no apparent injury.