People in the Bay Area have been setting up newly designed rat traps outside their homes which is doing more harm than good to other wildlife species.
Wildlife Emergency Services had to rescue a young skunk trapped by two rat traps outside a home in Aptos, California on Sunday.
The skunk was taken to a local wildlife hospital for treatment.
One of its paws is swollen and the other may lose a few digits and if it loses all of the digits on that paw, the animal may have to be euthanized, according to SF Gate.
The rat traps harming the skunks is actually counterproductive to the rodent infestation problem, according to Rebecca Dmytryk with Wildlife Emergency Services.
Inadvertently trapped skunks are a growing problem for Wildlife Emergency Services which rescued five skunks caught in mouse traps over five consecutive days last month, according to SF Gate.
Wildlife Emergency Services had to rescue a young skunk trapped by two rat traps outside a home in Aptos, California on Sunday
WildCare in Marin County, California, is also seeing the same problem with injured skunks.
They’re currently treating two skunks that were caught in traps, which brings to total to nine trapped skunks this year.
Dmytryk think the new rat traps make it easier for other animals to get hurt because of the ‘stronger grip’.
One of the skunks paws was swollen and the other may lose a few digits and if it loses all of the digits on that paw, the animal may have to be euthanized
She suggested a new rodenticide called Rat X, which is effective with mice and rats, but won’t hurt other wildlife.
‘Unlike the the old fashioned smooth-edged snap traps that larger animals could slip out of, these newer traps have a stronger grip and teeth that make it impossible for animals to escape,’ Dmytryk wrote in a blog post.
‘It is so safe another animal can eat it directly and it won’t get sick,’ she told SF Gate.
The rat traps harming the skunks is actually counterproductive to the rodent infestation problem because they keep the rat population down