Attention all New Jersey residents: Please sign the companion petition here: www.change.org/p/robert-smith-let-s-keep-inhumane-animal-traps-illegal-in-new-jersey

The wildlife of New Jersey needs our help now! The New Jersey Fish and Game Council (FGC) adopted a new regulation to allow the use of inhumane leghold traps, even though they were in 1984! The New Jersey Legislature has the power to overturn this new regulation, so we need to speak up and support Senator Lesniak's resolution, SCR175.

FGC's adoption of enclosed leghold traps is inconsistent with the plain language and legislative intent of New Jersey’s 1984 law banning animal traps of steel-jaw leghold type and should be withdrawn. SCR175, a resolution introduced by Senator Lesniak, points this out and, if passed, will enable the Legislature to protect both the statute and its authority and veto this unlawful regulation.

The New Jersey law banning the sale, use, possession, importation and transportation of any type of steel-jaw leghold trap has stood for three decades. The ban has weathered regulatory, legal, and political challenges by the Division, the Council, and the fur-trapping interests. Specifically, in 1985, when the Council considered allowing a modified leghold trap, the Attorney General informed the Council that the ban was “absolute,” “unambiguous,” and applied to all “technical modifications.” In court, the Attorney General stated that “the Legislature did not establish a standard for steel-jaw leghold trap size, or spring tension, or jaw alignment (e.g. offset) or for attachments. Nor did it establish a level of injury which was acceptable (or unacceptable). Instead, it prohibited the trap.” In response, fur trapping interests sued—but lost—when the law was upheld by the Superior Court of New Jersey.

The enclosed "foothold" traps are functionally the same as the banned leghold traps. Indeed, not only do they operate the same as the banned traps, but with clamping forces of up to 60 pounds, they cause excruciating pain, trauma, distress, and fear to the trapped animal.

Please sign this petition to thank Senator Lesniak by doing so, help him get the political power he needs to influence other legislators.