DEAR JOAN:Here is a mystery I wonder if you could solve.
Any idea what would do this? It is in a space not available to dogs and such.
Dolores, Bay Area
DEAR DELORES: The trap you are using is a humane trap, which means it is designed to capture, not kill, the animal. Ill talk more about that in a minute, but first, lets talk about how the trap works.
Both ends of the trap are open to allow a creature to enter. When it does, the weight of its body on the trip pad causes both ends to snap closed, trapping the animal inside. What happened in your case is that you tried to trap an animal that is much smarter than you might guess.
The animal dug on the outside of the trap, tossing the dirt and debris inside to spring the trap and render it useless.Any way you look at it, thats darn clever. Even if the trap wasnt meant for the animal, it prevented some other creature from getting caught. Im picturing a sort of caped animal avenger.
I wasnt sure what clever critter might be at work here, so I contacted a new friend, Imogene Davis, a wildlife biologist who recently helped me with some track identification. Imogene has extensive field experience with all sorts of wildlife. She now works with Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service studying Pacific martens in Northern California.
Imogene says springing traps in that manner is a common maneuver for a mesocarnivore an animal with a diet of 50 to 70 percent meat, and the rest made up offungi, fruits and plants. It is veryunlike a rodent, so your suspected rat is innocent.
She thinks it was likelya fox or a raccoon, both of which could access a fenced area.
Its important that you know what type of animal youre trying to snag before you set out to trap it. That will make your attempts much more successful as youll know where to place the trap and what to bait it with.
Now, back to that trap. I applaud you for using a humane trap, butI want to make sure youre aware of the trapping laws in California because a lot of people arent. Some people use humane traps to capture whatever animal is making a nuisance of itself in their yards, and then they transport the creature to a nearby park, or to open space, or to the yard of a neighbor theyre having a feud with. All of these options are illegal.
State law requires that if you trap an animal, you must either release it on the property where it was captured, or you must humanely kill it. That sounds a little nutty to some, but there are good reasons for it.
Transporting animals outside their territories can spread disease, set up conflictswith other animals, and orphan young left behind in nests and dens. On the other hand, release-or-kill rules allow for the humane trapping of, for example, a raccoon that has invaded your attic. You dont want to kill it, you just want to get it out of the attic, so you trap it, patch up the entrance hole after checking for more raccoons inside, and then release it in your yard.
Originally posted here:
Wily animal safely springs trap from the outside - The Mercury News
