SPCA calls for gintrap ban

SPCA is calling on councils to ban the use of gintraps within 1km of rural properties.

Gintraps, a type of leg-hold trap, laid too close to households are a danger to animals and children, SPCA chief executive Robyn McDonald said.

Mrs McDonald said there was a case for Parliament banning the traps altogether, after two recent incidents of a cat discovered by a group of children -- starving and with a rotting leg -- in a gin-trap near Hokitika. A missing cat was also found by a motorist near Kawerau with an infected leg consistent with being caught in a gintrap.

"It's currently up to councils to regulate the use of gintraps," Mrs McDonald said. "At the very least, we recommend that such traps be banned within a 1km radius of all human settlement.

"This would restrict them to areas where young children or domestic animals are unlikely to become trapped."

Earlier this year a Greymouth cat freed itself from a gintrap by gnawing off a paw.

Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton's National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) has been investigating for several years banning some leg-hold traps, such as gintraps which use sprung metal jaws to catch an animal by a limb.

The committee is looking at the possibility of phasing out the gintraps.

- NZPA