Animal 411

‘It Does Establish Local Control’: State Rep Pursues Bill That Would Allow Towns To Decide on ‘Leg Hold’ Trapping

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A state legislator is urging residents of New Canaan and nearby towns to contact their delegates to the Connecticut General Assembly as he pushes for a bill that would allow municipalities—rather than the state—to decide whether widely discussed “leg hold” or “foothold” traps may be used in their towns. State Rep. Fred Camillo (R-151) said that allowing towns to move away from the traps—which use a footplate and curved jaws that snap onto animals that spring them—is mainly “about cruelty to animals who otherwise have no say at all in how they are treated.”

“This is something that is really horrible,” Camillo, who represents a wide swath of Greenwich, told NewCanaanite.com as a long session of the state legislature got underway last week. “Horrible. And it is not just for coyotes. Dogs have gotten caught in these things.

Animal 411

State Wildlife Experts: Purported Mountain Lion Tracks in New Canaan Inconclusive

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State officials say they’re unable to conclude definitively what animal left large paw prints in a New Canaan backyard after a woman who saw the animal that made them claimed it was a mountain lion. According to Dennis Schain, communications director for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, wildlife experts examined the photos from Fox Run Road and would “consider further photos or other evidence—scat, fur—if anyone is able to provide that.”

In fact, residents of a property nearby on Valley Lane told local officials that they also had photographs of similar-looking paw prints and those have been forwarded to the state, according to Officer Allyson Halm of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section. It wasn’t immediately clear whether those photos would help the DEEP Wildlife Division reach a conclusion or what direction the animal in question appeared to be traveling, if it’s the same one. Halm said that while it’s not “panic mode” at this point for New Canaanites, they should be aware. Residents should absolutely avoid the big cat if they see it, and report sightings to Animal Control, Halm said—as they should with any bear sightings, which she’s expecting soon.

Animal 411

Unintended ‘Leg Hold’ Trapping of Fox on Briscoe Road Prompts Concerns

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After a leg hold trap inadvertently caught a red fox in New Canaan on Wednesday morning, officials are cautioning residents who authorize use of the devices on their properties to ensure that non-targeted animals aren’t suffering needlessly in them. Rosemary DeClue of Briscoe Road notified the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section after spotting the fox caught in a next-door neighbor’s trap that was meant for coyotes, just over her property line. DeClue said she had noticed a contraption of some sort, set in plain view from her home, near a wood pile, but wasn’t sure what it was until about 8 a.m. Wednesday morning when “all the sudden, I saw something jumping around and it was a fox caught in a trap.”

The owner of a Labrador retriever and two smaller dogs (Havanese), DeClue said she’s concerned about her own dogs getting past her fence and into the trap and that she opposes trapping in principle. “No one knows how long this fox was there,” she said. DeClue remained outside until her neighbor’s hired trapper arrived and set the fox free, she said.