November 2011 email: This past Tuesday a group of eight senior hikers were exploring Wilson Canyon. Wilson Canyon is east of Smith Valley headed toward Yerington. The highway’s south side of the recreation area is renowned for rock hounding so people traverse all areas of the canyon. One of the hikers almost stumbled into a steel jaw leghold trap hidden behind a rock about 600 ft. from a nice new trailhead that was cut in the “park”.
Families use this recreational area and even more will take advantage now that the land management has taken an interest in developing Wilson Canyon and building trails. This trap finding deeply disturbed all in the group. It’s even more disturbing to discover the laws that protect the trapper. This is what lead to finding your site.
What may we do to assist?
I appreciate your efforts and I’m in agreement with the need for safer regulations. Indiscriminate use of traps is akin to navigating landmines. Our government supports freely placing injurious devices nature-loving people must risk. WOW. This isn’t the 1800’s. You know, Trish, it appears very few people are aware of the trap laws. I sure wasn’t, nor were any in our group. I have to believe when more become aware the noise will get loud enough for regulations to be updated to today’s need.
Thank you for the attention you’re bringing to Nevadans.
Summer 2011: I found a trap this summer on the Toiyabe crest
trail, it had sprung and looked abandoned.
I have not run into any others over the years. I do not have a dog.
Letter to Wildlife Commission: I am a life long Nevadan and I lived on a ranch in Smith, Nevada. Some coyotes killed several of our sheep and my father-in-law hired a trapper to come in and trap the coyotes. Problem was, those traps killed way more than the coyotes, and I will never forget that trapper coming out to empty those traps, and talking about the other animals that stepped in them. I could not believe I was hearing those horror stories.
I cannot believe that these laws have not changed in all this time. The trappers need to check their traps at every 24 hours minimum, and if not,they should be punished. Each trap needs to have ID as well, to trace it back to its owner. If you have to have license to own a gun, trappers should be accountable for the deaths they are creating on public lands.
The horror that these animals have to endure is beyond what I can fathom, to let them suffer in them, is cruelty of the worst kind. Torturing anything is immoral and a disgrace. I would like to ask you to do the right thing here and update these regulations for the countless, voiceless creatures, that cannot speak for themselves. To lay dieing, in pain for days has nothing to do with good stewardship, and everything to do with a disgrace. Please help Nevada set a higher standard for trapping.
Thank you for your attention in this matter and it really needs attention.
Kat SimmonsGardnerville, NV
Trappers will say they “love” animals. They mean their dogs, alone among all the species.
2011 Told in person: I knew five bobcats had recently been trapped nearby in Dixie Valley. I was hiking along a narrow ledge with my grandchildren. There was noplace to turn off the trail. Coming around a bend we saw a trap right on the trail. One grandchild almost stepped in it. Then we saw four or five more traps also along the trail.[Traps are frequently set in clusters or lines. Lines can include as many as one hundred or more traps.]
Since passage of SB364, law now requires trapper ID or NDOW registration number on all traps set on public land. And the public has the right to disturb a trap that poses obvious risk.
[Told in person] My cat was caught by the lower body in a trap near our yard a few years ago. She was never the same since. She lost control of her bowels.
This is my Trapper Jane who fell victim to a trap in 2010. Here she undergoes toe amputation due to her injuries. She recovered well, but she was exceptionally lucky.
I cannot believe we are still using these barbaric traps.
These should be outlawed asap, and other means should be used. To create
suffering, for any animal has not place in a civilized world. I know of someone
whose precious family dog was caught in one of these, and lost his paw. It
would be like burring [burying] land mines, and hoping only the enemy steps on
them.
This is an unacceptable solution, and creates more problems than
it solves. It is most cowardly to set a trap, hope the “intended”
animal steps into, and then has to suffer, unless it mercifully dies, before a
bullet is put in it.
Please let Nevada become part of the solution, and be good
stewards of our lands.
Thank you.
Kat Simmons
Traps may be buried and invisible, like land mines.
