Dog owner calls for snare reforms after pet dies in trap put near road

BIG BADDECK, Nova Scotia – After watching with horror as her dog was caught and died in a snare, a Cape Breton woman is calling for stricter regulations and an improved warning system for the traps.

Dale Stone of Big Baddeck owns Rockinghorse Ranch, which offers trail rides and horseback riding lessons. She was out with a client last week on a local road when the incident occurred.

“Toward the end of the road, coming home, there was a snare right beside the side of the road baited with a deer carcass, and my dog Bear … went sniffing and got hooked in the snare,” she said. “I could see Bear struggling and crying and just freaking, and before I got to him he was dead. It was probably the most horrifying experience I’ve ever seen.”

Stone said the dirt road where the incident occurred has several homes on it, and she worries about the safety of residents, pets and others who walk along the road.

“I’d like to see a few changes. People should know that these traps are there because lots of people come out from Baddeck and there’s lots of animals around here,” she said.

Snares, which are designed to trap coyotes and other animals, have their critics in Maine.

In 2003, Maine’s formal coyote snaring program was suspended as a result of appeals to state officials by humane groups and others after emotional testimony to the Legislature.

Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife put the program on hold until it gets a federal permit absolving the department of liability under the federal Endangered Species Act.

In Nova Scotia, Stone said snares should be farther from roads and towns, and that trappers should have to get permission from landowners.

Kenny Timmons, an enforcement officer with Natural Resources in Baddeck, said an investigation of last week’s incident is under way to see if any regulations were broken.

Timmons said snares must be about 600 feet from dwellings unless permission is granted by the owner, but traps can be placed on privately owned land without permission unless a notice is posted prohibiting the traps. There’s no law governing the distance the traps must be from a road.