[told in person] A few years ago, in the Red Rock area north of Reno, my dog was caught in a steel jaw trap while we were riding horses. On another occasion, a neighbor was missing his dog. Eventually the dog came home, dragging a trap on its leg.
Coyotes will follow us when we are riding, but we know we can scare them away. We don’t want traps out here.
I was running Kaiser January 2, 2011 (German short hair pointer) in an area that I have run dogs for the past 30 years. He chased a rabbit up and over a hill and that’s where he was snared. I was able to find him by his whimpers and by my other dog walking over to him. Kaiser was lying under a juniper tree and his coat matched the dirt–he was difficult to see. Luckily, the steel leg hold trap only grabbed skin on his shoulder–no meat, no tears. There was blood, but it turned out to be mine when the trap cut into my palm as I was opening it to free him.
The trap seemed to be fairly new but had not been visited (no tracks in the snow) for a few days. It was set off a dirt road where I have taken my dogs for the last 25-30 years in the back of Lemmon Valley on the way to Antelope Valley.
I have notified my neighbors and will forward all information to them. My suggestion was to put up signs warning people there were traps in the area. This is an area used by many for exercising dogs, 4-wheeling, etc. I was also very disappointed to discover that Nevada had the 96 hour rule instead of 24 hours as apparently other states have.
30 states received a failing grade (“D” or “F”) From Born Free USA
Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
A group of us were hiking near the old White Horse Ranch about 2003 by Olinghouse, west of Wadsworth. There were 10-12 of us. One woman’s dog, a sturdy German Shepherd cross, got her paw stuck in a trap. It took two of us to get the trap off. The dog was hysterical with pain and fear, but was still able to walk. We went on and further up the trail found eight or nine clamp traps. There were feathers hung near them, a signal the trapper was after bobcat. They were attached to rocks to hold them in place.
A hiker’s aluminum hiking pole got stuck in one and it was almost impossible to get it out. We also saw snare traps on this trail.
We saw more traps, clamped to the ground with rebar, on the west side of the slope.
An intern for a local political campaign says his cat was trapped in the Fallon area October 2010. He found the cat outside, all bloody.
[told in person] My grandmother found a dog wandering near Pyramid Lake with a missing right front paw. Nobody claimed the dog, so grandmother adopted her. Eventually the paw healed, but it looked ragged as though it was chewed off.