TrapFree Oregon

If these cruel traps were judged by the agony they inflict, they would never be justified.

TrapFree regon

Welcome to TrapFree Oregon. We're a group of Oregonians who feel that leg- and body-hold traps should not be allowed in our state.

These indiscriminate traps are widely used in Oregon, with well over 20,000 animals trapped yearly for fur alone. For every

targeted animal caught, two or more non-targeted animals are trapped. Under current regulations, animals can remain in a trap from two to 30 days. The fur trapping season (December through March) is the deadliest time, but trapping goes on all year. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) places very few restrictions on where traps can be set, and traps are not posted.

Read the Trapping Regulations

A leg-hold trap can cause serious damage through loss of circulation and tissue damage, not to speak of injuries caused by desperate efforts to escape, which can include dislocated joints, limbs chewed off or mauled, and broken teeth and injured jaws resulting from attacking the trap. To this add dehydration, physical and emotional anguish, injuries sustained while fighting off other animals, or the results of a foot being immobilized in below zero cold for long hours or even days.

Other traps commonly used are snares and Conibear traps. These are designed to kill, the first by strangulation and the second by breaking the neck. Often they do this, but

sometimes they don't. If the animal is the wrong size or the trap doesn't strike exactly so, the animal suffers terribly and the injuries are horrific.

Learn about the traps and how to free your dog

Recently the number of dogs and other pets caught in these traps has surged, as more people move into rural Oregon. Some dogs have been killed. To save your dog from a snare, you need to carry wire cutters. If your dog is in a Conibear trap, you'd better be fast and strong because the dog has little if any time and the traps are very difficult to open. And with both these traps, the animal is struggling. It's a desperate scene.

The number of licensed trappers has more than doubled for the 2007-08 fur season, from roughly 1,000 to 2,500. We think it's an outrage that these people can lace our public lands with hidden, agonizing, murderous traps. We don't see why we, when on public land, should be subject to the kind of horror that some have experienced, helpless to save their dog as it struggles and dies in a snare or a Conibear trap. We don't see why any animal, wild or domesticated, should have to suffer such a death, or experience such agony, terror and despair for a day, or two, or however long it takes for death or the trapper to come along. We don't see why Oregon should allow our wildlife to be brutally slaughtered for sport or for profit by fur trappers. And we don't understand why this barbaric, archaic, unnecessary practice continues in our state.

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