Outdoor rat trap clamps down on snout of much bigger creature in Colorado, photos show
An outdoor rat trap clamped down on the snout of a much bigger animal in Colorado, photos show.
“Think you’re only catching rats when you set outdoor traps? Think again,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife Northeast Region said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The agency didn’t say whether the trap had been set by a homeowner, but the doe was spotted for several days with the trap over her muzzle in Evergreen, about a 30-mile drive southwest from Denver.
Photos show the doe standing in a field and lying beneath a table with the trap clamped over her muzzle.
Wildlife officers caught up with the doe to sedate her and remove the trap. A video shows the deer realizing she’s free of the cumbersome and likely painful contraption.
The officers appear to be overlooking her location from a balcony in the video as they wait for her to wake up and regain her strength to run off on her own. The doe looks up toward them with a confused look on her face as she wakes up.
“No more trap, buddy,” one of them says.
“She’ll look like she just got off a couple day bender when she stands up,” the other says as they slap their hand against something to make noise and scare her away.
The doe stands up, slightly unsteady as she looks around and gets her bearings.
“Atta girl,” the officer says. “Let’s get walking. There you go.”
She takes a few shaky steps and then trots off.
“The bigger issue here is the deer was likely being fed by humans, which is illegal and very harmful to animals,” the agency said. “The doe was comfortable approaching people while wearing the trap. That’s a bad sign. Remember to never feed wildlife, intentionally or (by) accident.”
