Letter: Shelter Our Strays

lettertotheeditor

To the Editor:

The members of the Board of Shelter Our Strays would like to express our concern over the use of leghold traps in the State of Connecticut and ask for your assistance in implementing a statewide ban.

The use of leghold traps was recently in the news in New Canaan, when a red fox was captured in a trap on a residential property.  This is not an isolated incident.  Numerous accounts of the inadvertent capture of “non-targeted” animals are reported every year.  This is unacceptable and demonstrates the indiscriminate nature of this device.  ANY animal or person can end up in a trap, including our beloved family pets and endangered wildlife.

Cats and dogs have often been found too late to save their lives, suffering the same horrible deaths as wildlife.  Broken bones and teeth and torn flesh are common, as the animal frantically fights to get away, even trying to chew off the affected limb.  When to no avail, they are left to starve, freeze to death, or die of their wounds before the trappers find them.

If the cruelty weren’t bad enough, they are not even effective in decreasing the populations they are trying to control, such as coyotes.  Yet they continue to be used even though there are available alternatives, such as the live (box) that are more effective, have a higher targeted rate, and are more humane for the animals and the ecosystem.

More than 88 countries and many states, including our neighbors, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, have banned leghold traps.  In addition, many groups, including the American Veterinary Medical Association and the U.S. National Animal Control Association, have declared them inhumane.

If this were not a form of

Leghold traps should be banned for no other reason than the fact that they are horrifically cruel and inhumane and no animal should be subjected to suffer such pain and anguish.

The State of Connecticut, which traps over 6,000 animals a year, should neither be condoning such cruelty nor putting its residents, including our children, and/or our companion animals at such unnecessary risk.

Shame on us if we allow this barbaric practice to continue.  Let’s end the suffering and ban the use of leghold traps in our state once and for all.

Shelter Our Strays,
Board of Directors

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