Owner of dog killed by snare wants P.E.I. to enact tougher penalties

The organizers of a petition to ban snaring on P.E.I. spoke before a legislative committee Thursday.

The petition, launched by Debbie Travers and Rene Lombard, had more than 500 signatures when it was tabled during the recent spring sitting of the legislature. It was prompted by the deaths of at least two dogs at the end of 2022. 

Travers was the owner of one of those dogs. Her four-year-old Pyrenees, Caspie, was caught in a snare and died while out on Travers’s own property. The trapper was charged with trespassing and fined $500. 

While the organizers are looking for a ban, they are also interested in tougher penalties. 

“If we had dismantled the snares we would have been fined $250 for each snare that we tampered with,” Travers said she was told by conservation officers after she found three more snares in the area where her dog died.

“We would have been fined $750.”

P.E.I.’s Environment Department confirmed that tampering with a trap or snare could lead to fines or charges under the Wildlife Conservation Act.

While Travers and Lombard said they are not expecting a ban any time soon, they would like to see tighter regulations and higher fines.

Travers said she is aware that there are trappers who follow the rules — asking permission of landowners and posting about the presence of snares — and she does not want to suggest otherwise.

She pursued a lawsuit against the trapper, and eventually settled out of court for an amount equal to the cost of raising a dog for five years.

During the legislative committee meeting, Liberal MLA Hal Perry expressed dismay at what the Travers family had been through.

“You have private property, you have a right to take your own dog on it without having to encounter any kind of a danger,” Perry said.

He went on to say the committee can only make recommendations to government, and noted it would be hearing from people on the other side of the issue in order to make an educated decision.

“We know there’s always two sides of every story, too,” Perry said. “Others will argue that trapping and snaring will help migrating birds, it will help endangered species, property damage we talked about, and control of invasive species here. There’s always going to be those two sides.” 

Fall trapping season could see changes

In an emailed statement, the Environment Department said it would continue to review trapping and snaring legislation and regulations over the winter, meeting with groups that may be affected by a trapping ban.

It will present options for rule changes to Environment Minister Steven Myers ahead of the 2024 trapping season, which starts in the fall.

Removing penalties for landowners dismantling illegal traps may be part of those recommendations. The email noted, however, that may be best left to conservation officers who can gather evidence as they take them down.

The province’s 2023 trapping summary document also suggests potential changes for the 2024-25 season could include the suspension of privileges for those who don’t get permission to set traps on private land. 

The committee has scheduled more witnesses to talk about trapping, including the fur trappers association and Dr. Pierre Yves Daoust, former vet college professor and author of a government-commissioned reported last fall that highlighted the importance of trapping as a wildlife management tool.