Dear Editor: There are many ways to be outdoors and enjoy nature in our area. It is with regret that I have to point out that trapping animals should not be one of them – as an article in your October 18 paper gives an account of. Imagine having your arm or leg crushed by steel jaws put under pressure and not being able to free yourself or move away more than a foot or two. You are not only in agony, but being a wild animal, in extreme fear. You are trapped and cannot go anywhere. If you have babies waiting for your return, they will suffer and die a slow death, waiting. If the trapper doesn’t return for a while, if ever, the hapless animal is forced to endure in heat or cold or rain, til death. Four years ago on a bitterly cold winter’s night, I heard in the distance a dog’s pitiful cry. I got in my car and drove as best I could to where the cry was coming from. Then with flashlight and bundled against the freezing wind, I made my way through woods to a hillside in a pasture to find a poor dog caught in a leg hold trap. I could easily had not heard him as he was quite far from my house. Many are never heard. Please help put an end to this. One group that can be contacted and is working hard with anti-trapping legislation is bornfreeusa.org Than you, April Crowe Trout
