HUMANE vs. INHUMANE

We received a call a few weeks ago about a skunk.  This skunk would not allow our customers into their shed. They tried scaring it, and even when approaching it, the skunk would not leave.  As we were on our way, we confirmed the skunk was still there, but they had not seen it in a bit.  Once we arrived at the house, we started to assess the situation.  As we approached the shed, our wildlife technician, Stephen, noticed a metal contraption under the shed.  As he got closer, he realized it was moving, and it was a rusty old leg-hold trap on the skunks leg.

Leg-hold traps are illegal for any person to possess or use, except for a licensed trapper. "A leg-hold trap is described as a trap that is designed to capture, but not kill an animal.  It does this by seizing and holding it by the leg." (Fish & Wildlife Conservation Act 1997, Ontario Regulations 303/07). 

Once Stephen saw the leg-hold trap, it made an easy removal into a difficult one.  Stephen spoke to the home owners about the trap, and they were as surprised as Stephen was.  Stephen knew he needed to remove the trap from the skunk first.  The trick was not to get sprayed and to keep the animal as calm as possible. He approached with a protective cloth, covered the skunk, and proceeded to hold the skunks tail down.  With the skunk in his hand, Stephen was able to remove the trap from the skunk's leg, with very little stress to the animal.  Once the trap was removed, the skunk was placed into a humane trap to be examined.


At a quick glance, it was obvious that the skunk's front paw was broken, and it would need medical attention. Stephen completed the job and departed the property. Once the best course of action was decided upon, Stephen checked on the animal again to assess which paw it was to accurately report it to the rehabilitation centre.  Despite his best efforts, the stress of the whole ordeal was too much for the skunk and he had passed away.  What a horrible way to spend the last hours of your life.


No matter what you may think of these smelly and sometimes destructive nighttime critters, they certainly do not need to be treated with such disrespect.


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Please read the following about the leg-hold traps, and the fur trade. This is only a small portion of the information about these two topics.  But please follow the links to learn more, and get a true understanding. 


Now you also have to take into account that trapping is almost in every country around the world. In Canada alone, there are 70,000 people directly employed by the Canadian fur trade. The fur trade is regulated and licensed by the provincial and territorial governments to ensure healthy furbearer populations. There is continuing development for more humane attitudes toward animals in Canada, for the animals welfare and their humane treatment, and for the animals' interests, rights of liberation and legal protection.  With that in mind, the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals (APFA) and the Canadian Association for Humane Trapping (CAHT), have been sponsoring research on the development of more humane traps, and in advocating the withdrawal of inhumane trap, (leg-hold traps are now banned as land sets for a number of species in British Columbia and Ontario). (Fur Trapping)


"The steel-jaw leg-hold trap is most often used to trap wild animals who are killed for their fur, (bobcat, fox, beaver and mink). The trapped animals usually don't die instantly, but they are left to suffer intense pain, exposure to sever weather, predation by other animals, trauma, dehydration and starvation", (Ontario SPCA)