South Carolina: Labrador mix rescued after she was seen limping and dragging a leg-hold trap on her crushed foot

GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA -- An online video of a dog being rescued after her foot was crushed in a metal coyote trap has gone viral.

The video shot by California animal rescuers Eldad Hagar and Loreta Frankonyte, with Hope For Paws, was posted March 20 on YouTube and Facebook.

In less than a week, it was watched nearly 548,000 times on YouTube and shared more than 4,500 times on Facebook.

Someone in Gaston in Lexington County called Hagar and told him that the black Labrador Retriever mix had lived in a forest for about a year before she stepped on a metal foot-hold spring trap intended for a coyote.

Steel-jaw spring traps are legal in South Carolina and several other states.

 

 

 

Animal control officers had been trying unsuccessfully for five days to trap or catch the dog, which was clearly in severe pain, so someone called Hope for Paws for help.

Hagar and Frankonyte flew in from California and searched along with officers for a full day. They thought the dog might be afraid of the officers, so they asked to search alone on the second day.

They set a humane trap for the dog, but she avoided it. She had no human contact for a year, so she would not allow anyone to get near her, but even from a distance, it was clear the heavy trap she was dragging had crushed her right front paw.

 

 

Finally, when they got close enough to the dog, Frankonyte sat on the ground and tossed pieces of cheeseburger to her, talking reassuringly for more than two hours as the dog inched closer. But suddenly the dog got spooked and retreated into the woods.

Hagar had several soccer nets that he used in captures in California shipped to him overnight. They recruited volunteers who helped spread out the nets around an area where the dog had been spotted between some trees and a building. The volunteers then closed in on the dog, cornering her so that Hagar could snap her with a noose.

They rushed the dog to a Lexington County animal hospital.

The dog was anesthetized, and the rusty trap was pried off her foot. While she was at the animal hospital. It was also discovered that she had heartworm.

Hagar and Frankonyte stayed another day to be sure the dog which they named Hermione, was medically stable, before making the three-day drive across the country. They stopped each day to have a veterinarian change the bandages. Hagar said that every day, Hermione would lose more bone from her decaying foot.

  

 

 

 

They took Hermione to Dr. Robert Olds, a veterinary surgeon in West Los Angeles, who performed two reconstructive surgeries on her foot.

The healing took a couple of months, but when the bandages came off, Hermione began to immediately to walk and even trot around on her reconstructed paw while continuously wagging her tail.

She was treated for several months for heartworms, but Hagar announced last week that Hermione is completely healthy and ready to be adopted.

Hagar asked those who saw the video and who follow him online to encourage changing laws to outlaw metal spring traps.

CRUEL AND BARBARIC LEG-HOLD TRAPS
According to analysis by the Law Library of Congress, more than 100 countries worldwide ban steel-jaw traps.

The United States is not one of them.

Their use is banned or restricted in several U.S. states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington.

In South Carolina, steel-jaw foot-hold or leg-hold traps can be used without a license, with the only stipulation being that traps must be checked at least once daily, from two hours before sunrise to two hours after sunset.

VIDEO OF RESCUE:

(WYFF - March 26, 2018)

Colorado: Nathan Simms, 31, gets prison after torturing, shooting and injuring mountain lions and bobcats to be shot in paid "canned hunts"

COLORADO -- A Grand Junction man was sentenced to three months in prison Tuesday for his part in Loncarich Guides and Outfitters' poaching scheme to capture and maim mountain lions and bobcats so that clients could shoot them without difficulty.

Nathan Simms (aka Nate Simms), 31, was sentenced in U.S. Federal Court to three months in prison, six months of home confinement, three years of probation and a $2,000 fine, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Mike Porras.

Simms pleaded guilty in April to eight misdemeanor counts of violating the federal Lacey Act by transporting wildlife across state lines.

Simms is the last of six co-conspirators to be sentenced after an undercover Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer discovered the business was injuring and caging mountain lions and bobcats on hunting trips before releasing them for paid clients to kill.

The investigation revealed that they would use a telescoping pole onto which a large leg-hold trap had been attached, Hovinga said. The guides would tree a cat, snap the trap on the end of the animal's paw and leave the cat to suffer.

Then they would call clients, encourage them to travel western Colorado immediately, telling them that they had been able to track a bobcat or mountain lion.

"They’d fly out and they’d go up there, and (the guides) would put on quite a show as far as finding tracks and turning their dogs loose. The cat would be obviously not far from where they left it the previous day or days. Before the hunter got to a cat after he shot it, they would remove the trap and hide it," Hovinga said.

The investigation revealed that hunters would pay up to $7,500 per mountain lion hunt. On some occasions, successful lion hunters were also offered a bobcat hunt for an additional $1,500, Hovinga said.

In other cases, they shot the lions in the paws, stomach, and/or legs.

“Any time you have an incident like this, our officers work very hard to bring the individuals involved to justice,” Porras said. “We’re satisfied to see that the individuals have paid the price for an egregious act of poaching.”

Christopher Loncarich, who owned the now-defunct outfitting business, is the only person other than Simms to receive a prison sentence in connection with the scheme. Loncarich began serving a 27-month federal prison sentence in 2014.

Four other co-conspirators were sentenced to combinations of probation, home confinement, community service and fines after pleading guilty to the charges against them.

Caitlin Simms, Christopher Loncarich’s daughter and Simms’ wife, was given a year of probation, a $1,000 fine and 60 hours of community service after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the Lacey Act.

Andie Loncarich, Christopher Loncarich’s other daughter, was given a year of probation, a $500 fine and 36 hours of community service after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor Lacey Act violation.

Grand Junction resident Marvin Ellis was given three years of probation, six months of home detention and a $3,100 fine after pleading guilty to one felony count of conspiring to violate the Lacey Act.

Nicholaus Rodgers of Medford, Oregon, was given three years of probation, six months of home confinement, 50 hours of community service and $5,000 in fines after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the Lacey Act.

"Rodgers admitted to personally assisting clients in unlawfully killing 11 mountain lions and five bobcats during the course of the conspiracy," a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services news release said.

Porras said that many of the cases investigated by Colorado Parks and Wildlife are successfully closed because of help from the public, which is what happened in this case.

 

 

 

“Illegal take of wildlife is a serious crime and any time it occurs, we are going to do our best to find those individuals and bring them to justice,” Porras said. “Many times it’s information from the public that solves a case, so people are encouraged to contact us if they think it’s going on.”

(Grand Junction Daily Sentinel - Sept 20, 2016)

Earlier:

• Colorado: Nathan Simms, 31, pleaded guilty to torturing and maiming mountain lions and bobcats so paid clients could kill them easier in "canned hunts"

New Mexico: Dogs caught in illegal traps and then shot somehow survive

NEW MEXICO -- "What is wrong with people. My moms dogs went missing yesterday afternoon and after searching all afternoon and the next morning she finds them caught in illegal traps and and shot in the head.

How they are still alive I have no clue but I do know you have messed with the wrong people. This is animal cruelty. To shoot them and leave them to die. You will pay for what you did."

 

 

How Minnesota refuses to save dogs being killed by trappers

MINNESOTA -- There's new blood in the battle for the Minnesota bush.

The fight pits fur trappers versus other outdoorsmen, some hunters, some trappers themselves. John Reynolds generals the latter. A trapper by hobby, Reynolds got called into duty after his dog Penni suffered a gruesome fate.

 

 

He walked on snow-patched government land 25 miles northeast of Brainerd, finding fox tracks and no signs of humans. Penni accompanied Reynolds when he came back to set leg-hold traps, those devices that catch by appendage, which are rarely fatal and must be checked by trappers daily, according to state law.

It'd take 15 minutes to set them, and his springer spaniel never strayed. Reynolds was sure of his simple plan.  

 

The trap that killed Hank was in the brush
 alongside this trail. (Jacob Barker/CBC )

But Penni took her last breath after sticking her snout in a plastic box baited with meat. What's called a body-gripping trap exploded into action, crushing her trachea and probably fracturing the dog's spine.

"She was dead before I even knew she'd been caught," he remembers.

It's a conflict that flames anew every fall. Hunters take to the woods starting in September, trappers a month later when the season for raccoons, badgers, and foxes opens.

 

Animal Control officer rescues cat from
leg hold trap in Omaha alley

Body grips remain the trap of choice for Minnesota's estimated 5,000 trappers. Not because they're more effective, but because they only have to be checked every three days, according to Reynolds, president of Dog Lovers 4 Safe Trapping MN. That sloth and the refusal to remedy it, he says, has already claimed hundreds of canine casualties over the years.

 

"[Leg-holds] catch more animals," Reynolds says. "With body grips, you'll can have bobcats that lay in front of the box, but won't stick their head in. You'll hear various arguments against changing the ways trapping is done, but I'm telling you it's because they don't want to check their traps every day that's really the driving force."  

Canada: Unleashed dog died after
being caught in a baited snare

Reynolds' group has taken the issue to St. Paul repeatedly. It wants new regulations that would spare dogs the death Penni suffered. Foremost, it wants body grips taken off the ground. That would mean trappers must affix the rigged enclosures five feet up a tree or submerged in water.

 

 

New York: Instead of charging Clint Moosman, 53, and
James Brown, 80, with animal cruelty for killing Molly Rose,
they're issued illegal trapping tickets. By the way, not
mentioned is the fact that Moosman is currently employed
as a Nuisance Animal Control officer for Seneca Falls.

"That would go a long way to help fix what's wrong," says Reynolds, who stopped grouse hunting four years ago out of fear for the safety of his bird dogs.

Minnesota Trappers Association President Jerry Larsen didn't respond to repeated messages seeking comment.

Canada: Sheepdog Gracie nearly dies
in baited trap on hiking trail

According to a recent DNR survey of trappers, respondents overwhelmingly said greater regulation on body grips would hurt their ability to catch the likes of fisher, marten, and bobcats. Moreover, when asked if they were concerned about dogs dying accidentally, only 18 percent said yes.      

Trappers' allies are many in St. Paul. Bills have been introduced in each of the five past sessions. In every instance they've been banished to committee, where they die.

Commissioner Mark Doerr, shown here, doesn't care about animals.
If he did, he would push to ban ALL traps.

"I don't think there is appetite at the Legislature to make any changes," Rep. Tony Cornish (R-Good Thunder) told the Star Tribune in 2012. "We can't solve all the world's problems with over-regulation."

 

Jamie Olson who works in Wyoming for Wildlife
Services encourages his dogs to attack a trapped
coyote, which is already dehydrated and weak from
its earlier struggles to escape the leghold trap. They
rip the coyote to pieces. 

Reynolds disagrees. He believes the issue will attract enough support next session to make it to the floor for a vote.

"The number of dogs killed like this doesn't have to be reported so we don't know how many," he says. "We do hear stories. There will be more and more of them if trappers don't change our ways."

(City Pages - Aug 15, 2016)

Related:

• New York: Instead of charging Clint Moosman, 53, and James Brown, 80, with animal cruelty for killing Molly Rose, they're issued illegal trapping tickets. By the way, not mentioned is the fact that Moosman is currently employed as a Nuisance Animal Control officer for Seneca Falls.
• Canada: Sheepdog Gracie nearly dies in baited trap on hiking trail
• Canada: Unleashed dog died after being caught in a baited snare
• Idaho Fish and Game proves that they care nothing about animals - just money garnered from hunters and trappers
• Pet cat’s leg amputated after getting caught in illegal trap
• Robert Schabel, charged with animal cruelty after shooting dog caught in leg hold trap in his yard
• Animal Control officer rescues cat from leg hold trap in Omaha alley
• Hay River family dog Hank killed by abandoned wolf trap
• Photos of animal abuse posted on federal wildlife specialist's Facebook stirs anger
• Wyoming coyote trapper defends graphic photos