At least 100 cats and dogs have been caught in animal traps across B.C. since 2015, provincial records show.
The data, which comes from documents obtained through a freedom of information request made by the animal charity group The Fur-Bearers and seen by Glacier Media, show wildlife traps caught between eight and 15 pets a year between 2015 and 2023.
“The actual number is probably much higher. People aren’t reporting it to conservation officers,” said Aaron Hofman, the group’s director of policy and advocacy.
Documents show incidents in 2023 alone span a number of communities in B.C.’s north and central regions, from Dawson Creek to Smithers.
Further south, dogs were found trapped in a number of communities — in Fernie near the Alberta border, in Vernon in the Okanagan and in Abbotsford on the south coast.
Incidents of cats getting caught in wildlife traps, meanwhile, were reported in the South Okanagan region of Grand Forks, and the coastal communities of Delta, Nanaimo and Gabriola Island.
Traps leave trail of dead, injured pets
One incident report from the BC Conservation Officer Service in Pemberton describes a caller scared of an individual who caught dogs in baited wolf traps and erected fencing to trap domestic and wild animals.
“He also has pit traps in his backyard,” reads the heavily redacted report. “He has already trapped [redacted] … cat.”
In one incident report that involved a number of cats getting trapped, “the caller suspects the same person is continuing to set snares to harm domestic animals.”
Elsewhere, one caller reported their dog was killed by a 10- to 12-inch trap placed on Crown land.
“Caller would like information on what can be done to warn people about this,” the incident report states.
And in another case, a dog and “fairly old cougar" were both caught in snares dead a few feet from each other.
Nine of the incidents resulted in investigations while five dogs were killed by the traps over the past two years.
'Trauma pretty real'
Hofman said that while the overall number of pets trapped and killed is relatively small, the numbers appear to be going up in recent years.
“They’re not big numbers but they have weight for the families impacted by it,” he said.
“Anyone that's out with their dog and they hear something and they find their dog in a trap — that trauma is pretty real. For those families… it's losing a family member.”
The heavily redacted documents show incidents across Crown and municipal land, as well as off trails on neighbours' properties. Of the 26 incidents in the past two years, only two charges appear in the documents.
Hofman said a lot of the incidents are preventable and could be avoided by regulatory changes. He pointed to increasing a mandatory setback from dwellings beyond the current 200 metres, and introducing new measures so trappers have to keep their distance from trails and roads.
“The most important is mandatory warning signs,” Hofman said. “We’ve been trying to get this change through the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship because they're in charge of wildlife.”
A spokesperson for that ministry said she was unable to respond until a new cabinet is sworn in.
B.C.'s incumbent NDP government recently won an electoral majority by a razor-thin margin. That prompted three judicial recounts and an associated delay in forming the next government.
