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DEFENDERS OF ANIMALS
Time to ban steel-jaw leghold traps
Steel-jaw leghold traps are legal in Rhode Island, but the Defenders of Animals, Inc. is supporting legislation introduced by Warwick Rep. Joseph Trillo that would ban them.
Defenders Director Dennis Tabella has been fighting for the ban since 1979. Ninety countries have outlawed them, but only the state of New Jersey has done so in the United States.
We think it's time for the Department of Fish & Wildlife - which has always opposed a ban - to take a new look at the issue.
As a story in today's Times details, legal leghold traps are strictly regulated. They are used as a "last resort" in an effort to control wild predators, which are then shot to death following capture.
But there is the danger that a domestic animal will fall victim to the traps, which do cause suffering, even maiming, whether the captured animal is a dog or a cat or a coyote.
There are safer and certainly kinder methods of deterring attacks on domestic and farm animals. Defenders of Animals is promoting the use of wolf urine, for example, to deter coyotes from an area such as the Warwick Neck section of Warwick, where they have become a nuisance. The University of Rhode Island has implemented a highly successful method of keeping the sheep on Peckham Farm safe from harm: Bonnie the "watch donkey" patrols the area. Llamas and dogs have also proven to be effective "watch" animals.
We shuddered to learn that steel-jaw leghold traps were set in Moonstone beach and Trustom Pond in South Kingstown to protect nesting Piping Plovers. They are isolated areas, to be sure; but it is still conceivable that a domestic animal - or, God forbid, a child - could inadvertently get snared.
To be sure, a ban on the traps would not prevent their illegal use. A domestic cat in East Providence had to have its leg amputated after it was caught in a leghold trap that was set illegally. But we believe such use would at least be reduced if the traps were subject to an outright ban.
Certainly coyotes have become common in South County, and there is at least one confirmed report of a coyote killing a cat.
The answer isn't steel-jaw leghold traps. It's keeping a careful eye on household pets in areas where coyotes have been spotted.
If you'd like to see the traps outlawed, take a minute or two to contact your state legislators, whose telephone numbers and e-mail addresses can quickly be found on this page.
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