January 7, 2012
By Greg Kocher, Kentucky.com
Gregory Tyra admitted to setting the traps, police said.
A Mount Sterling man will face charges of trapping without permission
after a dog was killed by an animal trap in a public park in Paris,
authorities said.
Gregory Tyra, 42, was arrested Friday after he admitted that traps
set in Garrard Park were his, Paris Assistant Police Chief Rob Williams
said. Tyra was being held in the Bourbon County Detention Center on an
unrelated charge of carrying a concealed deadly weapon, Williams said.
The dog was killed Thursday. Robin Redmond told police that the dog
became caught in a trap in Garrard Park while being walked.
"It's one of the traps that has like a pressure plate in it, and they
put the food back in the box, and when the animal walks in, it hits the
pressure plate," Williams said. "It's almost like two weights spring up,
and it's made to break an animal's neck."
Paris police officers found other traps along a creek bank. On Friday
morning, officers saw a man later identified as Tyra get out of a truck
and check the traps.
"He said he has traps in three counties," Williams said. "He said he
had 70 traps here in Bourbon County, but he wouldn't divulge where the
other locations were."
Tyra apparently sets traps for raccoons, foxes and muskrats —
"anything he can sell the fur off of," he said. He did not have
permission to set traps in the park, and the city probably wouldn't have
given permission anyway, Williams said.
"It's city property, and you're not allowed to go on someone else's
property and set traps," he said.
A conservation officer and an animal control officer found seven
other traps in the park, said Mark Marraccini, spokesman for the
Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Williams said the concealed-weapon charge was related to having a gun
in his truck.
The traps in Garrard Park were removed, Williams said, and no other
traps were found in other public parks.
On Monday, three days before the dog was killed, a conservation
officer found a trap near the park and a train trestle, Marraccini said.
The trap was not tagged with a name and address as required by law, so
it was seized.
Conservation officer Loren Clark will meet with a prosecutor next
week to determine other charges against Tyra, Marraccini said.
"Trapping without permission would certainly be one of the charges,"
Marraccini said.
Paris police said if anyone finds other traps, they should call
police at (859) 987-2100.
