humaneness of trapping
Unlike what animal r*ghts activists would tell you, foothold traps can be very humane. There are a number of studies that have shown that trap modifications like off-setting the jaws and adding swivels can severely reduce injuries to trapped species: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1339&context=gpwdcwp
The study above concludes that the injuries were drastically lower than in other studies like Olsen etal (1988): https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt8bz0f305/qt8bz0f305.pdf and Onderka etal (1990) because of the offset jaws and extra (mid-chain) swivels. A coyote or other animals getting an amputated foot from an offset coil-spring trap is also very rare, since in Olsen’s study only raccoons had amputated feet. (And I do Think that raccoon trapping could be improved, in Canada the only restraining traps allowed for raccoons are box-traps: https://fur.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Certified-Traps-List-FIC-April-8-2019-Eng-8½-X-14.docx.pdf
Anyway, neither Onderka nor Olsen’s study mentioned how many swivels the trap chain had but swivels are very important when setting a trap, they allow the chain to follow the animal’s movement as it moves and prevents bones from breaking.
In the us, most trappers use no. 1-3 coil-spring traps with offset jaws and at least two if not Three swivels:
https://www.fishwildlife.org/application/files/3115/2106/4349/FINAL_AFWA_Trap_Use_Report_2015_ed_2016.pdf
There are reports by animal rights Groups showing animals with very injured and even amputated feet in foothold traps. What they rarely mention is that they are almost Always a result of illegal trapping and misuse of traps. For example, a coyote that was caught in a foothold trap almost severed the foot. But the reason why is that the trap had no proper chain with swivels but only a string to anchor it.
Animal r*ghts activists also claim that trapping increases risk of rabies and other diseases. This is very unlikely to be true considering that the animal most likely to have rabies are raccoons and skunks, and rabies prevalence in both species are on a downward trend: https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/full/10.2460/javma.253.12.1555
and this study: file:///C:/Users/Ungdomar/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/0090-3558-45.3.772%20(1).pdf shows that culling can be effective for reducing rabies in raccoons. (”THE CONTROL OF RACCOON RABIES IN ONTARIO CANADA: PROACTIVE AND REACTIVE TACTICS, 1994– 2007″ if the link doesnt work.)
Although one type of trap I’m against is killing snares. Studies show that these kind of snares do not consistently render an animal unconscious within 3 minutes or less. However, I know from an email that trap testers in Canada are working towards addressing Welfare issues in killing snares and in a few years they will either be improved or banned from Canada.