Banned trap shreds fox's hind leg: A hobby hunter had to shoot the animal
A fox drags itself across the edge of a property, its left hind leg clamped between the sharp jaws of a steel trap. What sounds like a scene from an old adventure novel became bitter reality in May 2026. In Beeskow in the Oder-Spree district, a fox caught its hind leg in a so-called leghold trap — a device whose use has been banned in Germany for decades. The animal was so severely injured that it could no longer be helped. A hobby hunter ultimately had to shoot it to release it from its agony.
Local residents discovered the seriously injured fox on 5 May 2026 at the edge of a property in the west of Beeskow.
The animal was stuck with its left hind leg in the illegal spring trap. Witnesses assume that the fox had already been suffering for a considerable time and had been dragging the heavy iron along with its injured leg. The two jaws of the steel trap had snapped shut when the animal stepped on the central plate and triggered the mechanism.
The police have opened an investigation. The animal rights organisation PETA announced that it would file a criminal complaint against persons unknown. Such finds are no isolated cases. Time and again, wild animals are found dragging themselves along paths, hedges and properties with one of these instruments of torture clamped to their leg, until they are found or die in agony.
What a leghold trap does to an animal
A leghold trap operates without any selectivity whatsoever. When an animal steps on the central plate, two spring-loaded jaws snap shut with full force and close around the leg. Bones break, tendons and muscles are crushed, and often the paw is partially or entirely torn off. The trapped animal cannot free itself and endures hours or days of mortal fear, thirst and excruciating pain.
Who falls into the trap is decided by pure chance. Alongside foxes, cats, dogs, badgers, martens, beavers and birds are regularly caught in these irons. It is precisely this lack of selectivity that animal welfare organisations have been criticising about trap hunting as a whole for decades.
Banned in use, permitted for sale
The use of leg-hold traps for hunting has been prohibited in Germany since 1934, and an EU-wide ban has been in force since 1995. Inflicting pain with such an iron constitutes a criminal offence under Section 17 of the Animal Welfare Act and can be punished by imprisonment of up to three years or a fine.
And yet these traps keep turning up. The reason lies in a contradiction: while their use is banned, the traps may still be sold in Germany. A trade ban was meant to be enshrined in the Federal Hunting Act in 2021, but politicians scrapped the plan. As a result, countless old specimens are kept in attics and barns, and the threshold for using such a trap against the supposedly bothersome fox remains low. PETA expert Peter Höffken demands that the responsible animal abuser be found and held to account. Anyone wishing to know more about the legal situation surrounding hunting law will find a dedicated dossier at wildbeimwild.com on the hunting act.
Legal trap hunting is cruel too
It would be too easy to pin the problem solely on individual animal abusers with banned traps. Trap hunting causes great suffering even where it is permitted. Live traps are legal in all federal states; trapped animals often wait in panic for hours until they are checked and shot. Kill traps such as the swan-neck trap do not always kill instantly — documented cases show long, agonising death struggles.
And traps are by no means set only in remote forests. They are often placed close to paths, high seats, residential areas and gardens to make inspection rounds easier. The justification is usually that the population must be protected from the fox, or small game populations from predators. This reasoning does not hold up scientifically. We compile background information and studies on this in the section hobby hunting.
A fox is not a pest
Many regard the red fox as a problem, yet it performs an important function in the ecosystem. It regulates mouse populations, consumes carrion and sick animals, and contributes to the health of entire habitats. The notion that it must be kept in check with traps is a relic of a time when wild animals were broadly divided into useful and harmful. Anyone wishing to better understand the fox and its role in nature will find ongoing contributions in our dossier wild animals.
For chicken keepers who genuinely have problems with predators, there are also effective and animal-friendly solutions: escape-proof enclosures, well-secured coops at night, motion detectors with light and sound. Deterrence instead of destruction ultimately protects both sides.
What you can do
Anyone who discovers a set trap while out walking should not remove it themselves, but instead immediately inform the police and the responsible hunting authority and, if possible, take photos and record the exact location. Every reported find increases the pressure to finally put an end to the practice of trap hunting, which has grown over decades.
The shot fox from Beeskow is another name on a long list. It reminds us that behind the romanticisation of hobby hunting and the harmless-sounding term of trap hunting lies a system that systematically inflicts suffering on animals. For more on law, prosecution and documented cases, see our dossiers on animal rights and on crime around hunting.
