“This despicable behaviour must be stopped,” said Shannon Kornelsen, APFA’s Director of Public Outreach. “A complete ban on body-gripping traps in the City of Toronto and its surrounding areas is a strong, first step to ending this kind of suffering and to ensure the public’s safety.”
Other municipalities, including the City of Guelph, have instituted strong municipal trapping bylaws in recognition that provincial and existing municipal regulations have large loopholes; a fact well-known to trappers.
“Trapping is more than just an ethical issue,” Kornelsen said. “There is a very real potential for humans and their pets to be caught and injured – if not killed -in these devices.”
APFA is calling on the Toronto council to enact a ban on the use of all body-gripping traps in the City of Toronto.
“For the sake of protecting wildlife and for the sake of public safety, we hope the City of Toronto will continue to live up to its status as a world-class city and ban the use of these archaic weapons,” Kornelsen said.
And this is why we need your help.
If you are a Toronto resident, please contact your city councillor encouraging him/her to support a ban on the use of body-gripping traps in the City of Toronto. For your convenience you can use/modify the sample letter below and the following email addresses.
Dear Mayor Ford and Council,
As a resident of Toronto, I was appalled to learn that someone is skinning beavers in the Don Valley. I became even more upset when I learned that traps are legal in the city of Toronto.
Not only are these traps cruel to wildlife, they cause pain and suffering to any animal who encounters them– including our dogs and cats. A list of reported incidents involving dogs and cats in traps can be found here.
Traps also pose a serious public safety risk to humans, specifically children.
I am aware that The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals is urging council to adopt a bylaw (similar to the one enacted in the City of Guelph, ON) to ban the use of all body-gripping traps in the City of Toronto. Please enact this bylaw before more of our wildlife are killed, and before a tragic incident involving a dog, cat or child occurs. There is no place for traps in a city as fine as Toronto.
Will you please consider banning the use of body-gripping traps in the City of Toronto?
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
Please send to:
councillor_ainslie@toronto.ca
councillor_augimeri@toronto.ca
councillor_bailao@toronto.ca
councillor_berardinetti@toronto.ca
councillor_carroll@toronto.ca
councillor_colle@toronto.ca
councillor_crawford@toronto.ca
councillor_crisanti@toronto.ca
councillor_davis@toronto.ca
councillor_debaeremaeker@toronto.ca
councillor_delgrande@toronto.ca
councillor_digiorgio@toronto.ca
councillor_doucette@toronto.ca
councillor_filion@toronto.ca
councillor_fletcher@toronto.ca
councillor_dford@toronto.ca
councillor_grimes@toronto.ca
councillor_holyday@toronto.ca
councillor_kelly@toronto.ca
councillor_layton@toronto.ca
councillor_lee@toronto.ca
councillor_lindsay_luby@toronto.ca
councillor_mammoliti@toronto.ca
councillor_mcmahon@toronto.ca
councillor_mihevc@toronto.ca
councillor_milczyn@toronto.ca
councillor_minnan-wong@toronto.ca
councillor_moeser@toronto.ca
councillor_palacio@toronto.ca
councillor_parker@toronto.ca
councillor_perks@toronto.ca
councillor_robinson@toronto.ca
councillor_shiner@toronto.ca
councillor_stintz@toronto.ca
councillor_thompson@toronto.ca
councillor_vaughan@toronto.ca
councillor_wongtam@toronto.ca
