Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Animal traps are barbaric


Whoever saw the movie "127 Hours" has probably experienced strong feelings and wondered what he or she would do in such a circumstance. The movie reveals the long hours of fear, stress, extreme suffering and loneliness of a man trapped in a slot canyon.

I admire how Aron Ralston had the courage and the strength to cut his arm off to free himself and save his life. While I thought about that, an image came to my mind: a wild animal trapped and forced to chew his limb off to free himself. While the story of that man is unusual, every day humans set up animal traps in which wolves, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, bears, birds and dogs experience exactly what Ralston did.

Each year, 40,000 animals are trapped this way in Idaho. Many of them, including dogs, end up chewing their limb off to safe their lives.

Under Idaho law, trappers can return to their trapping site as long as three days later. This is a very long time when you are trapped in metallic teeth that have broken your bones and ripped your skin apart.

Sadly for these animals, the ending is another story. Usually, the trapper will shoot the animal or stomp it to death and skin it for a fur coat. Many of you might think an animal is not the same as a person; however, in this case, it is exactly the same with the difference that this time, the animal was not trapped accidentally but was set up intentionally by humans.

I wonder if some of you made the connection with animal trapping and the movie, and realized that trapping should be banned. If it's really needed, there are other ways to trap an animal without involving a long agony. It is amazing that such a modern and civilized society as the United States hasn't yet been able to evolve humanely and still applies this barbaric killing method. It is time to change.

Isabelle Moore

Sun Valley




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