Celebs, Activists Back Ban on Animal Traps

Trapper the dog leans over a small, rusted metallic trap, takes a sniff and moves on. A year ago he chewed off his own leg to escape from this kind of device.

The incident led Trapper’s owner and others, including several celebrities, to take up the cause of eliminating the use of steel-jawed traps in California.

On Tuesday, Kevin Nealon, Ed Begley Jr. and Shari Belafonte joined the folks from the Protect Pets and Wildlife (PAW) organization at a news conference during which they urged voters to sign a petition that would place an initiative banning body-gripping traps and animal poisons on next year’s November ballot.

At least 433,000 voters must sign the petition by Jan. 31 to qualify the measure, which would prohibit the sale of wildlife pelts obtained through body-gripping traps. It also bans the use of sodium fluroacetate and sodium cyanide to poison any animal.

“The idea that these traps are still in existence is beyond belief for me,” said Belafonte.

The traps are used by fur trappers to catch small game like foxes and beavers. Each year, the steel jaws, hidden under dirt or in shallow water, snag more than 15,000 animals, including dogs and cats, according to PAW. Some animals survive for as long as 24 hours, struggling to free themselves from the traps. Often they die from blood loss after eating through their own flesh and bone, a PAW spokesman said.

Trapper, a 3-year-old black-and-gold shepherd mix, survived probably because he bit through his own leg a little bit at a time, said his owner, Robert Ferber, a Los Angeles attorney. He was found shortly afterward and soon became the poster dog to end trapping.

PAW, along with the Doris Day Animal League, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Ark Trust, the Animal Protection Institute and the Fund for Animals, enlisted the celebrities’ help to spotlight the initiative.

“It’s important that word gets out about this, because once someone hears about this petition they will support it,” said Gretchen Wyler, president of the Ark Trust Institute. “No one wants to see animals die this way.”