El Paso, Colorado County Commissioners
27 E. Vermijo Ave
Colorado Springs, CO 80903-2208
ph: 719-520-7276 • fax: 719-520-6397
Commissioner Districts
Wayne Williams, District 1:
Amy Lathen, District 2: 719-520-6412 •
Sallie Clark, Third Member, District 3: 719-520-6413 •
Dennis Hisey, Chair, District 4: 719-520-6414 •
Jim Bensberg, Vice Chair, District 5: 719-520-6415 •
El Paso, Colorado Board of County Commissioners:
I write as a concerned citizen who is disgusted with El Paso, Colorado’s intent to finance the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) use of leghold and snare traps to eradicate homeless dogs. This is wholly unacceptable. I strongly urge officials to manage homeless animals compassionately.
At the outset, El Paso County officials can expect a public relations nightmare. Spring-powered or sear-activated steel-jaw leghold traps crush an animal between two steel jaws. Even “padded” traps clamp down on an animal’s legs, feet, head, eyes, muzzle or abdomen. “Padding” provides little more than a sliver of material wedged between steel jaws and an animal.
If animals are not fatally squashed, many gnaw their teeth to the jawbone or chew off their feet to escape. Those who survive mutilation, exposure and starvation languish on trap lines until trappers return to club, stomp, shoot or drown them.
Snare traps consist of a cheap steel-cable loop crafted to strangle an animal in minutes. Snares usually fail, leaving the animal to endure hemorrhaging, bloodied eyes and broken teeth. No animal — wild or companion — should suffer slow and agonizing death.
Yet that is precisely what El Paso County plans to subsidize, despite its contractual agreement with a local humane society that dispenses countywide animal control services and takes in strays.
Please invest in humane box traps to contain fearful or skittish dogs. Animal control agencies humanely trap all the time, yet El Paso County has not even attempted a non-violent approach. I respectfully ask officials to cancel their USDA contract to abuse and kill roaming dogs.
It is incomprehensible that any county could propose this merciless form of “animal control” in the 21st Century.
Thank you,