Leg trap to catch a fox are is to cruel?

[mississippifarmboy]

I guess I'll make everyone upset but....

I've been trapping all my life. I can't say it's a nice thing to do, but it's effective.

In my experience it's far harder to catch anything in a live trap than in a regular old fashioned leg trap. (Or conibear trap if I'm after muskrat. mink or beaver). Maybe it's just because I'm used to the old traps. Never used a snare much, but I hear they are very effective too when used correctly.

I don't particularly like trapping, but a darn sure don't like loosing stock to predators.

To each their own.

 

[bigoledude]

There are some guys around here who've trapped for over 50 years! None of them have ever seen a foot-hold trap with teeth. That is a cartoon image we've seen for years. However, it does not exist in real life!

Trap 'em, shoot 'em and snare 'em. But, if you leave them be, they'll be back. Usually with friends.

 

[FarmersHatchery]

Yes and no...it really depends on your perspective. Yes, it causes immense pain to the animal you catch. No, because there are much more painful ways to handle a fox. I though, wouldn't use it. I'm not saying that just because I think it is a bit too much, but also because you can catch other animals you weren't trying to. Dogs, cats, and lots of other animals get caught in them accidentally all the time. If it walks, it can get caught. I would either just keep shooting them, or use a live trap.

 

[Roark]

Just a warning to anyone stumbling across this thread who has a fox problem and has never trapped. The few comments here by folks who really know what they're talking about (people that have actually trapped) are spot on, and cover the most salient points. The people who make emotional or uninformed assumptions really have none. Whatever name you call them (leg hold, pad hold, long spring, coil spring) a #2 dirt/hole or straw/hay set will catch foxes well as long as you prepare your traps properly, construct your set properly, and bait appropriately. Just buying a new trap and imitating a YouTube video ain't gonna get 'er done. The time, energy, and expense that you might devote to an adequately sized cage trap will buy you a half dozen good coil spring traps, but the cage trap is a lot more difficult to lure a wary fox into. I've now used both and the #2 coil spring trap, set in pairs, has captured three bird killers for me now the first night that they were set. I have caught one with a cage trap, but it took several weeks and cost us two more birds in the process.

We are adjacent a large forested area on one side and crop land on the other so the fox have plenty of habitat, as do the even more numerous feral cats. The problem with the cage traps has been twofold. First, it catches a feral cat almost every night, after witch the trap is obviously doing nothing but warning the fox that something is amiss. Secondly, nothing short of a live chicken in a separate cage used as bait will get one in the door on the first night's set, and my wife would sooner put me in the trap than allow me to use one of our birds as bait. Otherwise I only had success when after trapping out a handful of feral cats, I worked the bait back into the trap over several nights. Meanwhile, Mr. Fox was still happily active reducing our flock population by day. Generally when these guys get fed they keep coming back for more 'til there's either no more food, or they get caught/killed.

To all of the folks who exercise stereotypical disdain and repulsion over their un or misinformed idea of just how traps work and what they actually do... I'm curious just what it is that you wear on your feet and how ya think they got there? Do ya drive a car? Just where do ya suppose the material in that cell phone or computer comes from? Unless you're Amish and wearing hemp from head to toe, the life of a CAFO beef or dairy cow, pig or chicken, is a whole lot more "inhumane" than anything a responsible trapper has ever done. Ya wanna talk the talk, look in the mirror (and in your own closet or frig) before you engage mouth, or keyboard as it were. This nonsense being spewed so matter-of-factually about animals chewing their legs off, or suffering undue pain, is simply ignorant and irresponsible, emotional blather, regurgitated by programmed drones who have never taken the time to educate themselves to the truth before posting their opinion. Spreading such nonsense as though it was real information is disgusting and does nothing but cause others more harm than good. Specifically, setting a trap and forgetting it is bad mojo, whatever type it is. Leaving a fox to wither and die of dehydration in an unchecked cage trap is no different than leaving it in a leg holding coil spring trap or snare. The point is that the trap set needs to be checked every day, whatever is used.

As for this image of exaggerated, saw toothed, leg choppers, as already stated, it's simply not ever been anything close to true. If we are to rely on old Road Runner & Wiley Coyote cartoons for our education I would suggest that an Acme anvil or safe as a dead fall would be infinitely more effective and "humane". Other than some localized swelling, that disappears within a day or two, even the non-target catches that I've made have never been permanently harmed by the trap (#2 coil spring) itself. Whether it was caught by a cage or a #2, it still ended up dead however, which brings me to my last point.

This idea that it is somehow more righteous to catch'em alive and relocate is yet another well intended disaster by the good intentioned ignorant. Nature tends to work out its own population balance. A scarcity of food will help limit brood sizes and breeding cycles, but where man sticks in his often clumsy hand. By moving a nuisance fox to some place new, just what do ya suppose you've done to the local population there? Our presence and population growth continues to put pressure on their habitat, so this is neither something new nor anything that's going to stop anytime soon. Messing about with food chains is never accomplished in a vacuum. By relocating that problem animal to a different area you might well have just doubled the previous population of its new range, and this new area might well not be capable of supporting that new pressure, leading the newly transplanted animal to immediately being a problem somewhere else. Another issue is that you may have eliminated your problem, but you've just quietly created the potential of a new one for someone else. By messing with the available food/population balance in the new area you likely end up enhancing the likelihood that the animal will find itself intruding in human or domesticated animal domains, ultimately leading to repeat of the cycle. And then there's the very real problem of spreading disease. I can think of no better way than to live trap an animal in one locale, put 'em in a vehicle and drive it miles and miles away from its original range and releasing it into a completely new, and formerly unexposed, population. How wonderfully humane... now we have two populations infected with lets say rabies, or maybe Lyme disease carrying tics, etc. This kind of "humane" stupidity is unfortunately more the norm than the exception. The spread of rabies through relocation of infected racoons is perfect example of this type of unintended consequence.

Thinking that there is anything about our existence on this planet that isn't bad news for animals is one that the warm and fuzzy crowd needs to get real about. There is nothing animal/earth friendly about the harvesting and processing of the raw materials that go into the making of the very computer through which they might choose to expound. Smelting ore that is ripped from the earth's crust using lakes of petroleum extracted at even greater environmental costs is hardly "humane" in terms of the big picture... not for the animals or for us. We do the best that we can with the available resources at our disposal and constantly race between destroying our world with new technology whist trying to save it at the last minute with newer versions of the same. For now, we happen to be at the top of the food chain, thanks to our brains. With that in mind, I would suggest that people try and use them before suggesting that something they know nothing about is "inhumane".

Consider this... if chickens could talk, wha'dya think they might have to say on the subject?

 

[Roark]

http://www.fntpost.com/index.php?page=91

 

[numpty1971]

Foxes are quite cute though aren't they.

 

[NEChickenNoob]

Having utilized these traps in my youth many years ago, I think I know where the "chewed foot off" came from. We had been trapping several coons and such from a vegetable field that was too big to fence (not that it would have worked). We caught a opossum in a leg hold and noticed it in the trap about 30 min before sunrise. We went back to the barn and got the .22 to dispact it and when we came back only the foot was left. We did find the carcass about 100yds away next to the woodline. A predator had gotten it. What? We couldn't tell. And this only happened once and the farmer I was working with (80 yrs old) had only seen it one other time. I think conclusions were drawn where no carcass had been found. Any other trappers ever witness this or care to weight in?