Has anyone ever heard of or experiance a small or big animal getting trapped in a catch alive trap cage and dieing from shock quickly because they releized they cant get out?I read about this the other day and had never heard of this before....Seems like a rabbit would do this fairly easy?It was a article written by a game & fish biologist and they had encountered it with squirrels,..I wonder if birds would do this also,like freak out & die??Seems like the really big game like elephant or tigers,bears,sheep,goats,etc. would maybe go in shock from being so close to humans?I never have heard this discussed before much....I bet the Alaska Game departments would know the answer to that one...Seems like i have also heard some born wild animals will not eat in captivity???If they cant have there freedom they will starve themselves to death?Anyone know if this info is real or a myth?I thought it was kinda interesting for a post,so us novice trappers can learn from the older more experiance Trappers.....

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3798364
I found it..Scroll down a little,this is the link.

the technical term is capture myopathy. It is a real problem, especially in warmer weather and if the animal is drugged. We dont trap deer during the summer due to this.

It's an uncommon to rare occurance while banding birds, but it does happen.

We trapped a 15 foot croc in Australia in a 16'x4'x4' cattle-panel trap. He was in the shade and in the water and had not bent the trap much, but was quite weak after 24 hours when we got back to him. Another few hours and he would not have required the .223 tranquilizer.

Thanks for shareing,That bad boys a monster!

I have never seen it happen. I have caught rabbits in foot hold traps before and released them unharmed. I have also caught them and had them shredded by foxes. I have also caught a squril in a foot trap at the base of a tree. that was one of the hardest things I have ever released.

We always called it "neurogenic shock". But then that was years ago. It's a problem with deer I know. When the Mormon Ranch was rounding up cattle in the 1960's they had a lot of trouble catching deer in fence corners and lots of them died of shock. That may have been the first it was noted.The Fish and Game people started trapping deer in Florida about the same time and they had a big problem with it.
Feral cats will struggle and suddenly collapse and die if restrained. Sometimes pet cats do the same especially if they have any respiratory problems.

I have trapped since the 70s and have never, ever had an animal die on its own while in a trap, be it a cage-type or coilspring. Once in a great while, a rabbit or squirrel will be caught, and even rarer, a coyote or 'cat will kill it and eat it.

Do I remember that one of the problems is a great drop in blood sugar ?
I do know of a case at a nuclear facility where a wild rabbit was caught to see of it had radiation problems .It tested OK for radiation but died of the shock of being caught and handled.
I've also read that black snakes are very suseptable to this.