Trapper upsets woman

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Rebekah Burwell was making her morning commute toward Neponset when she spotted something she couldn’t turn away from ... something she’ll never forget.

She pulled her car over four miles outside of town when she saw it in a ditch — a raccoon stuck in what she thought was the fence.

“I noticed the raccoon and thought ‘that’s strange.’ It was 7 in the morning, and they usually come out at night. I’m just one of those people, when I see an animal I have to go see if it’s OK,” she said.

It was only as she crept closer to the animal, very bloodied but still alive, that she realized he was caught in a trap. The Conibear trap, as it is called, wrapped around the animal’s hindquarters, pinning him to the ground.

“There was blood. His mouth was bloody from biting at himself. You could tell he’d been there all night. He had clawed at the tree above the trap to get out. It was just in horrible pain. It was horrible,” she said.

Burwell of Kewanee called her friend and employer, Bonnie Doty, director of the Friends of Strays No-Kill Animal Shelter in Princeton, to ask her advice on how to release the animal.

Doty said she didn’t know how to get the animal out of the trap without killing it. Desperate, Burwell went back to her car and called the Kewanee Police Department and told them her location. She was told they could not do anything, since she was out of their jurisdiction.

“I drove into Neponset because there is usually a police officer in town. This was within 10 minutes; I couldn’t find the cop, but I got a phone number. I drove back, and the raccoon and the trap were already gone,” she said.

“It was just horrible because I know (the trapper) had to have killed it to get it out of there. This is the worst thing I have ever seen, and I just wish I could forget it; but I can’t,” she added.

According to Burwell, it is illegal to put traps in a public area, like ditches along the road and public parks, but she has heard of people in the area doing it.

“They used to years ago, I remember seeing people come into Bradford, where I’m from, and they’d have dead foxes, raccoons, coyotes. The furbearer would come and get them,” she said.

Burwell said she has heard residents in Neponset say people set traps by the railroad tracks.

“I want people to know it’s not some humane thing. They don’t go put the animal to sleep and pick it’s fur. It’s just horrible, and it’s for nothing; we don’t need it,” she said.

Burwell also mentioned the fur farms, where animals are raised and brutally killed for their fur.

“I think people should know about that too. It might make people think before they go and buy a coat with the fur trim, at least check and make sure it’s fake fur,” she said.

Burwell suggests people think twice before buying a fur coat. According to the organization, In Defense of Animals, depending on the type of animal, it can take an average of 40 animals to make one fur coat.

It is also estimated 10 million animals are trapped in the wild every year for their coats.

Burwell also wants to remind people the traps are indiscriminate and can catch domestic cats, dogs or even small children.

“It’s just cruel. It’s very, very cruel. It drives me crazy, especially on these cold days to think that somewhere out there there’s something stuck in a trap, and it can’t get out,” she said.

“It was a horrible thing for me to experience. I want to feel like I’m doing something because it just hurt so bad when I went back, and that raccoon was already gone,” she added.

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