Unless a severe blow to the head or some congenital brain disorder has rendered them incapable of feeling empathy, anyone who has witnessed the harrowing ordeal suffered by an animal caught in a leg-hold trap should be appalled and outraged that trapping is legal in a society that considers itself civilized.
The continuation of this hellish violation in a country governed by the people suggests that either most folks have brain damage, or the majority of the voting populace is blissfully unaware of the terrible anguish someone caught in a trap goes through.
They must never have heard the cries of shock and agony when an animal first feels the steel jaws of a trap lock onto his leg. They must never have looked into the weary eyes of a helpless captive who has been stuck for days and nights on end…
Sidestepping the indisputable cruelty issue, pro-trapping factions try to perpetuate the myth that this demonic practice is “sustainable,” but time and again entire populations are completely trapped out of an area, often within a single season. The winter after I found wolf tracks in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, all seven members of a pack who had filled a niche in and around that preserve were killed by trappers. Though wolves are extinct or endangered in most of the US, but 1500 are permissibly “harvested” in Alaska each year.
Leg-hold traps are now banned in 88 countries and a few enlightened US states. Yet in most states, as in Canada, this twisted tradition is not only legal, it’s practically enshrined as a sacred human right. Compassionate people everywhere must add their voice to the rising call to end this gratuitous torture for good.
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Text excerpted from the chapter “Time to End a Twisted Tradition” in the book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport.
Photo Copyright Jim Robertson
