ORIGINAL: 24/7 hunter
Ive been trapping for a few years and love it. I dont believe it hurts an animal bad. Ive got my hand in traps and it scared the heck out of me but it didn't really hurt. Trapping is actually more of a challenge than hunting. even with a bow, you can cover thousands of square feet. With a trap, you are trying to get an animal to step on a trap pan that is no more than 4 square INCHES. The death of a trapped animal can be more humane than when hunting. The kill shots are close with little room for error. The key is using the right type or size of trap. If you do that, the animal may get a numb foot for a while, and one well placed shot will put it down clean.
I agree, when I was younger and I got my hand stuck in a victor #1 in my dads store, it scared the heck out of me but it really didn't hurt after I finally calmed down. It did bruise pretty good across my knuckles though.
I saw alot of fox and coyotes when I would walk my dads line with him they all reacted the same way fight or flight. Since they couldn't get away once we got up close they would turn to fight, dad shot them with a .22 and that was it. I have never feltsad for any of them,most were just sitting there calm as can beuntil we came up to them. Every now and then we would come up on a trap where the coyote had chewed his leg off butit was rare and we usually came across them again later in the year with the spot light while hunting them at night. It's something to see a three legged coyote running across a field.
I later learned in a wildlife biology class that the animals nervous system is very different then ours. The K9 would go into stages of shock after getting trapped, between that and the pressure from the trap it was considered a common thing for an animal to knawl off it's leg if it was left in the trap to long.