A B.C. couple has launched a petition to update the rules around fur trapping after their two-year-old Siberian Husky was caught in one and killed.
A few weeks ago, Sean Boxell was skiing with two-year-old Moon near Radium Hot Springs when their dog was seemingly lured to the trap by the smell of raw meat.
Boxell said the trap was on Crown land, just off the plowed road to Farnham Glacier in the East Kootenay region.
The couple says Moon’s neck was caught between two metal bars that snapped together when he triggered the trap and Boxell, who was alone with Moon at the time, couldn’t get the trap to release. Their dog suffocated and died.
Get breaking National news
They said they are not the only ones to have lost a pet this way and they want the practice ended.
“It’s always the same situation,” Boxell’s partner, Nicole Trigg, said.
“Not aware of the trap lines were there, didn’t see the signage or there was no signage in an area that you wouldn’t expect it to be.”
More than 3,000 people have now signed the petition to change the laws around fur traps.
“At the core, though, I think we’re really talking about an industry that has no relevance to British Columbians anymore,” Lesley Fox with the Fur-Bearers Association said.
“And it’s time, perhaps, for a discussion to end commercial trapping.”
Randene Neill, the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, said the province is exploring mandatory and improved signs, plus other safeguards.
Comments