Bleeding to the mouth and self-inflicted injuries occur because carnivores bite the trap and their own leg when they suffer the pain and fear of being trapped. In some cases, animals have chewed off their own leg to escape. While padded traps inflict less severe injuries than the cruel steel-jaw traps, they cannot be called humane. Wrapping strychnine soaked rags around traps to kill animals is also not humane. The poison enters the victim's system either through the leg wound caused by the trap, or when the victim chews the trap in trying to escape.
Strychnine causes violent convulsions and painful muscle contractions before the animal dies.
The Feral Animal Search Conference in Canberra in 1991 recommended that the sale and use of strychnine be banned. Traps are indiscriminate - they catch any animal unlucky enough to step on them. A further 58 were native birds, in addition to 213 wombats, possums and swamp wallabies. The larger traps in this study caught 1.9 individuals of protected native wildlife for every dingo, while the smaller traps caught 0.3 for every dingo. Many of these animal are severely injured and have to be destroyed - even padded traps cause injuries.