Attribution: Accipiter (R. Altenkamp, Berlin), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, gives the podium to the keeper this morning to confess yet once again his unconscionable use of leghold traps during his predator youth of catch, kill, consume or market all lesser creatures.
It is painful for him to recall the enthusiastic energy he put into his use of leghold traps to inflict untold long periods of misery and awful prolonged death to a variety of innocent creatures as he exercised his predatory genes.
Leghold traps–the tradition tool of millions of pro and amateur trappers, as its name implies snaps shut on a victims’ paw causing desperation struggles that often result in the animal chewing off its own limb to escape. The obvious inhumanity involved has seen the leghold trap banned in 80 countries and in 10 US states.
In Wisconsin, trapping is promoted by the DNR and conservation organization as one of the wholesome activates to encourage youth to enjoy the out-of-doors. Leghold traps are an assumed tool, used to “harvest” everything from wolves to muskrats to foxes and quite often the neighbor’s cat or dog.
In this age of absurd misery inflicted by a narcissistic political “trapper,” it is time for Wisconsin to look at its promotion of the abject cruelty of leghold traps.
It is something that could be done in the name of Wisconsin living up to the name of its mascot—FORWARD!
