![A connebear trap sprung on a boot, showing the force of the trap when tripped accidently by a hunter. Turns out trapping is allowed on the state's new walk-in hunter access program, and Kevin Auslund, for one, isn't happy, saying hunting dogs are threatened by the policy.] Photographed on 7/10/14. Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune bbisping@startribune.com Kevin Auslund/source](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/5BZGLFKBPD3FUQCQ6SIHSPG4EU.jpg?&w=1080)
When I was 12 or 13, I decided to become a trapper. I bought a few single-springed traps and set them at a nearby creek. Early the first morning, as I approached the creek, I heard the rattling of a chain.
Sure enough, a muskrat on the far bank was struggling in the steel grip of my trap. I ran downstream to the bridge, crossed over and ran back to the spot. The muskrat was gone. It had chewed off its foot and fled.
That experience convinced me that "this" was not me, nor whom I wanted to be. I pulled in my mini-trapline, never to use it again. That poor muskrat suffered in fear and agony, and perhaps died from the trauma, but my life was changed — dare I say, salvaged.
About 20 years later I went on a raccoon hunt with my brother-in-law. He hunted strictly with dogs. Two other men from town joined us, and the four of us followed the baying of the redbone and bluetick hounds through a beautiful, moonlit summer night as they repeatedly lost, then found again, the trail of a fleeing raccoon.
The raccoon ran a good flight, eluding the trailers time and again, but finally it was caught midstream in a creek. It fended off two dogs, pushing their heads beneath the water, but when the other two dogs joined in it was overwhelmed and dragged out onto the creek bank. Each dog then got a good jaw-hold on the critter, and they repeatedly jerked and pulled the helpless living thing into pieces.
It was horrifying, though the two townsmen whooped and hollered their encouragement all the while. That was the night I hung up my shotgun for good. I realized that torture and killing were not me. The fear and extreme suffering of that innocent creature was sad, but not without result. I changed the course of my life.
Another 10 years later, my wife and I lost our beloved dachshund to a body-gripping trap, almost at our doorstep. Frantically, in the early-morning darkness, I unsuccessfully tried to remove the monstrous thing from him. I failed, and Li'l Hen was slowly squeezed to death. The police had to cut the trap from him with bolt-cutters.
Henry suffered mightily that morning, and again I was changed, becoming active in my opposition to trapping. I wrote an opinion article for the Star Tribune (March 20, 1988) that resulted in a lot of mail — much of it defending trapping but an equal amount sharing stories from people who had lost pets to traps and the insidiously cruel snare.
