Help End Cruel Animal Trapping

Now that many animal advocates have been reelected to the United States House and Senate, we need to make sure they are prioritizing reintroducing important bills that will protect wildlife in the 119th Congress.

One of the greatest cruelties inflicted on wildlife in the United States is the horrific practice of using body-gripping traps and snares to catch, restrain, and/or kill animals. These devices cause the suffering and death of millions of animals across the country every year, including household pets, as there is no way to control what types of animals have the misfortune of being caught by traps and snares after they have been placed in the wild. Even humans have been harmed by stepping on sprung traps left in public spaces.

Traps and snares fall into two categories: restraining traps and killing traps. Restraining traps include steel-jawed leg-hold traps, which snap closed on an animal's legs as they walk over them; Conibear traps, which clamp down on an animal's body when triggered; and certain types of snares, which involve loops of wire or cord that tighten around an animal's body when tension is applied.

Restraining traps often cause prolonged suffering for animals, who experience extreme psychological stress and physical pain when captured in these devices. Some states have no requirements for how often traps are checked, and captured animals have been known to starve to death after being caught or to die due to exposure to harsh weather or predation from other animals while they are helpless and immobilized. Other animals are severely injured where the trap closes around their limbs, and even if released, these animals may later succumb to their injuries or face challenges in hunting or foraging, leading to their eventual death. When mother animals are ensnared in these traps, their offspring are often left to face the grim fate of starvation or death due to the absence of nourishment and protection.

Leg-hold traps are considered so cruel that they are essentially banned in 80 countries.

Kill traps operate by crushing, strangling, or drowning the captured animal. These include snares designed to tighten as an animal struggles until they are eventually suffocated. These traps can cause animals to die slow, agonizing deaths, with reports of a wolf caught in a killing snare taking three hours to die and a coyote struggling for over 14 hours before eventually expiring.

This type of violence against innocent wild animals is unconscionable, and it must be stopped. Thankfully, a key advocate for ending cruel trapping, Representative Jerrold Nadler of the U.S. House of Representatives, has just been reelected in New York's 12th Congressional District. Representative Nadler has been pushing for the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act, which would end the use of body-gripping traps in the National Wildlife Refuge System. This important bill would be a crucial first step toward a federal ban on horrific trapping and snaring in the United States. With very little time left this legislative session there is no chance this bill will pass in the 118th Congress so it’s important to plan ahead to ensure bills like this one get the attention they deserve in the new Congress.

Take Action Now

Please join Species Unite in asking Representative Nadler to reintroduce the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act in the 119th Congress to protect our precious wildlife from suffering and death due to trapping.

Once we reach 10,000 signatures, we will reach out to Representative Nadler to show him there is a strong demand for common-sense legislation to protect wildlife.