Letter to Wildlife Commission Sep. 16, 2011
Dear Commissioners,
My name is Terri Levy and I have been a resident of Reno for 15 years. When I moved here from Mississippi I was expecting a place that was more advanced in it’s policies and actions taken towards many things. Sometimes I have been quite impressed and other times I have been mortified, as in the case of the “snap” traps.
Unfortunately I have seen first hand what these traps can do to an innocent animal. I worked at the Animal Emergency Center in Reno for 5 years. There is one incident that will forever stick out in my memory:
We had a lady bring in her dog who had gotten caught in one of these horrific traps. He had gotten in to the neighbor’s yard previously and to “teach” the dog not to do that, the neighbor set out 5 traps. Apparently the man didn’t have to answer to anyone when doing this because he never would have gotten approval. The owners found the dog still in the trap (after the neighbor went to work),cut it off and sprung the other 4 that they found. The best guess was that the dog had been in the trap roughly 24 hours. It had an open fracture (bone sticking out of the skin) and had started chewing at it’s leg trying to free itself. Because of the rust and dirt, infection had already set in. We had to amputate the leg and the dog spent several days on I.V. antibiotics to ward off a system wide infection that would have killed it.
The dog owners were in the wrong. They should have had control of their pet. But there were other ways this could have been handled. The man who set the trap also had horses. They were apparently in a different pasture at the time of the incident but what if someone had let them out? The parties mentioned above live in a populated area near the Harrah’s Ranch off Neil Rd. What would our leaders have to say if a neighbor child had gotten caught in that trap?
These traps are barbaric and non-discriminating. If we can build a space station and design GPS systems then we can certainly find better ways to handle the situations where these traps are “so necessary”.
Thank you for your time,
Terri Levy