05/08/2025
WARREN COUNTY NJ
DISGUSTING CRUELTY TO WILDLIFE
PLEASE REPORT THIS IF YOU SEE OR KNOW OF SOMEONE DOING THIS. NOT ONLY IS IT ILLEGAL ITS INHUMANE . I HOPE THE TRASH THAT DID THIS IS FOUIND AND HELD ACCOUNTABLE
*SHARING THIS FROM ANIMAL CONTROL OFFICER Robert Lagonera - POSTED ON THE WASHINGTON BOROUGH NJ COMMUNITY PAGE* - I COULDN'T POST THE VIDEO, SO PLEASE GO TO THE PAGE IF YOU WANT TO WATCH IT FROM THERE.
"Animal Control Officer Robbie again. In this video you will see a disturbing call I responded to yesterday. I don’t typically post these kinds of calls, but I have decided to this time in order to send a message. Someone decided it was a good idea to throw a live skunk in a Hava heart trap off a bridge and into a creek to drown. They missed the deepest part and the skunk was treading water trying to survive. Upon seeing this when I arrived, I felt terrible for the poor skunk and decided to say “screw it” to the bed sheet and proper “skunk in trap” procedures. Which led to at least SOME humor in this scenario as I was sprayed in the damn face as a “thank you for the assist” by the skunk lol (coincidentally, if you were in ShopRite on 31 yesterday and smelled skunk that was me. I had to grab stuff for dinner after this call).
I want to take the opportunity from this call to explain something that saddens me to have to actually explain. Doing something like this is highly ILLEGAL. There is absolutely no reason in the world to do something like this. And I really, really want to have this next message sink in. If you are planning on purchasing a live trap and catching wildlife. THINK ABOUT IT FIRST AND DONT JUST SET A TRAP. I get so many GD calls every year from someone saying “I caught a skunk, or I caught a raccoon, now what do I do. And I always say the same thing. “When you set the trap what was your plan for if you caught something”. And I either get “I didn’t really think that far” or “Well, I was planning to call you”. First of all, I am not here to be your “town funded pest control”. I will try and help guide you on how to do it yourself safely and for the benefit of the trapped animal and yourself. And SOMETIMES I will come out and do it for you. But, I WILL charge you a fee to do that. Because I do not encourage it, I don’t really want to do it, and it’s in my contract to do so. Aside from that, please, please THINK AHEAD!! If you’re going to try and trap an animal yourself that you consider to be a pest. Yes, you are legally allowed to do that. But there are rules on what you can do after you have caught it. And if you violate those rules (like say tossing the poor thing off a bridge) you can and will be prosecuted for it. As a matter of fact, in the instance of this particular call I had contacted my conservation officers from DEP and through investigative work, they found the offender that threw the skunk off a bridge, and are, as we speak, charging them for the crime. So yes, if you do something like this you absolutely can and will be charged for the offense. Big thank you to NJ DEP conservation officers, warren county communications for their help in the investigation, and to my wife and kids for putting up with the smell in our home right now."
