TrapFree Oregon

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

TrapFree regon

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

targeted animal caught, one 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.

Fur trapping season begins December 1 and runs until March 15.

What you can do to help erase this cruel industry from Oregon:

If your pet has been trapped...

Welcome to the TrapFree Oregon website, a source for information about the use of leg- and body-hold traps in our state and how you can help to stop it.

Read the Trapping Regulations

A steel 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. Federal animal-control agents commonly use leg snares to trap bears. These traps are checked every 76 hours, during which time the bear suffers complete loss of circulation in the leg.

Other traps commonly used are neck 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. In the spring of 2008, tourists in Alaska’s Denali National Park saw two wolves with swollen and disfigured heads. Both had been living for months with snare wires deeply embedded in their necks. One died, the other was captured, freed of the wire and released, although with serious neck injuries. Click here for the story.

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.

Learn about the traps and how to free your dog

USEFUL LINKS

• Coalition to Abolish

The Fur Trade

The number of licensed trappers has steadily increased in Oregon, from 891 in 2002 to 1,283 in 2007. Many Oregonians are outraged that these people can lace our public lands with these hidden, savagely cruel traps. Many Oregonians don't see why they, 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. No 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. Oregon should not allow our wildlife to be so brutally slaughtered for sport or for profit by fur trappers.The western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, and Washington have severely restricted or banned the use of leg- and body-hold traps by voter initiative. Oregon should follow suit.