Wildlife // Campaigns Against Cruelty to Wildlife

Inside the Fur Industry: Trapping Maims and Kills Animals

Although the majority of animals slaughtered for their fur come from notoriously cruel fur factory farms, every year, trappers kill 10 million raccoons, coyotes, wolves, bobcats, opossums, nutria, beavers, otters, and other fur-bearing animals.¹

Varieties of Trapping

There are various types of traps, including snares, underwater traps, and Conibear traps, but the leghold trap is the most widely used. The American Veterinary Medical Association calls these traps “inhumane.”² This simple but barbaric device has been banned in 88 countries and in a growing number of states across the U.S. since 1973, including California, Florida, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington state.³ In 1994, Arizona banned the use of leghold traps on public lands. California voters prohibited all commercial leghold traps in 1998, and Washington voters followed suit, adding a ban on body-gripping traps, in November 2000.⁴

When an animal steps on the leghold trap spring, the trap’s jaws slam on the animal’s limb. The animal will frantically struggle in excruciating pain as the trap cuts into his or her flesh, often down to the bone, mutilating the foot or leg. Some animals, especially mothers desperate to get back to their young, fight so vigorously that they attempt to chew or twist off their trapped limb. This struggle may last hours. Eventually, the animal succumbs to exhaustion and often exposure, frostbite, shock, and death.

If trapped animals do not die from blood loss, infection, or gangrene, they will probably be killed by predators or hunters. Victims of water-set traps, including beavers and muskrats, can take up to 20 agonizing minutes to drown.

Because many trapped animals are mutilated by predators before trappers return, pole traps are often used. A pole trap is a form of leghold trap that is set in a tree or on a pole. Animals caught in these traps are hoisted into the air and left to hang by the caught appendage until they die or the trapper arrives to kill them. Conibear traps crush animals’ necks, applying 90 pounds of pressure per square inch. It takes animals three to eight minutes to suffocate in these traps.⁵

Traps Do Not Always Kill

For animals who stay alive in the traps, further torture awaits them when the trappers return. State regulations on how often trappers must check their traps vary from 24 hours to one week. Some states have no regulations at all. To avoid damaging the pelt, trappers usually beat or stomp their victims to death. A common stomping method is to pin the head with one foot and stand on the chest area near the heart with the other foot for several minutes, which suffocates the animal.

‘Accidental’ Victims

Every year, dogs, cats, birds, and other animals, including endangered species, are crippled or killed by traps. Trappers call these animals “trash kills” because they have no economic value. In Middleboro, Mass., the body of a skinned dog was found with his front paw missing. Evidence led the investigating officer to believe a trapper caught the dog in a leghold trap, then shot and skinned him.⁶ In Oregon, a woman watched helplessly as her companion dog let out screams of pain after stepping into a steel-jaw leghold trap hidden in a meadow frequented by people and their companion dogs. It took three firefighters 24 grueling minutes to release the terrified dog from the trap.⁷ In Montana, a woman walking her dogs on public land struggled frantically as her canine companion screamed and writhed in agony when he suddenly became trapped by a baited Conibear trap. She unsuccessfully tried to release the clamp as her beloved companion slowly suffocated. “I’ve never seen anything as traumatic as this girl trying to raise the dog from the trap,” said a witness who heard the woman’s screams for help. Later, she discovered that another dog had been caught in a Conibear trap on the same trapline only six days earlier and that the trapper responsible for the traps had been informed at that time by a game warden.⁸

Ecological Concerns

Contrary to fur-industry propaganda, there is no ecologically sound reason to trap animals for “their fur.” In fact, trapping disrupts wildlife populations by killing healthy animals needed to keep their species strong, and populations are further damaged when the parents of young animals are killed. Left alone, animal populations can and do regulate their own numbers. Even if human intervention or an unusual natural occurrence caused an animal population to rise temporarily, the group would soon stabilize through natural processes no more cruel, even at their worst, than the pain and trauma of being trapped and slaughtered by humans. Killing animals because they might starve or might get sick is simply an excuse for slaughter motivated by greed and ignorance.

A Dying Industry

As trapping becomes less profitable, the number of trappers has dropped. For example, the number of licensed trappers in Virginia has dropped from about 5,000 in the 1970s to about 850 in 2003.⁹ In Washington state, sales of trapping licenses declined by 36 percent from 1999 to 2000.¹⁰ Most trappers now do so as a deadly hobby. The European Union plans to ban the importation of furs from countries that use leghold traps despite years of lobbying and trade pressure by the U.S. and Canadian governments. The resolution finally adopted in December 1997 encouraged state agencies and trappers to “improve traps” and allowed the continued import of wild-caught fur into the EU over a six-year phase-out period. Meanwhile, public distaste and anti-fur activism kept the pressure on, and an industry- backed U.S. government report summed up the results, complaining, “The decline of the Northern European marketplace during the 1980s and 1990s for all wild fur has had a devastating effect on prices paid to trappers.”¹¹

Compassion and Fashion

You can discourage trapping by discouraging fur-wearing. When you see people wearing fur, tell them the facts about trapping; many people incorrectly assume that animals are killed humanely. If you already own a fur garment, please consider giving it to PETA as a tax-deductible donation for use in educational displays, anti-fur demonstrations, and fur giveaways to the homeless. Write or call businesses that sell furs or give furs away as prizes and ask them to stop promoting cruelty. Ask your legislators to introduce bills to ban trapping. Contact PETA for literature to teach others about the inherent cruelty of the fur industry. For more ideas about how you can help, go to FurIsDead.com.

	Number of Target Animals in 40" Coat	Number of "Trash" Animals Per Coat	Total Hours Spent in a Trap
BEAVERS	15	45	225
COYOTES	16	48	960
LYNXES	18	54	1,080
MINKS	60	180	3,600
MUSKRATS	50	150	1,500
OPOSSUMS	45	135	2,700
OTTERS	20	60	1,200
RACCOONS	40	120	2,400
RED FOXES	42	126	2,520
SABLES	50	150	3,000
(Statistics from Skin Trade Primer by Susan Russell, published by Friends of Animals)

References:
¹Richard Donovan, “Leghold Traps are Barbaric and Indiscriminate Killers,” Idaho Statesman, 30 Aug. 2002.
²American Veterinary Medical Association, “AVMA Positions Address Animal Welfare Concerns,” 15 Jul. 2001.
⁶Franci Richardson, “MSPCA Probes Dog’s Death” The Boston Herald, 26 Jan. 2003.
⁷April Parker, “My Turn: Leg-Hold Traps Have No Place in Modern Oregon,” The Oregonian, 12 Dec. 2002.
⁸High Country News, op. cit.
⁹Sue Anne Pressley, “Muskrat Love Losing Appeal; Fewer Trappers Are Hunting Area’s Coastal Waterways,” The Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2003.
¹⁰Paul Queary, “Trapping Ban Unleashes Nuisance Wildlife,” The Associated Press 6 Oct. 2001.
¹¹FAAC, 2000-2001 Annual Report, op cit.

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