The controversy over using cable snares is pitting animal advocates and pet owners against conservationists, and farmers.

The controversy over using cable snares is pitting animal advocates and pet owners against conservationists, and farmers.

Meet Mamalu, a Kalihi Valley dog who lost her front leg to a pig snare about than a year ago.

?It was devastating for us as a family not knowing where she was for six days and wondering if she was okay,? said owner Puni Freitas.

Mamalu had chewed her own leg off to get free, and then hobbled her way home.

?Knowing it was a snare that had done that, we were really upset that there are people who are leaving them and not checking them,? Freitas said.

Freitas who lives deep in the valley, didn?t realize what happened to her pet was something that animal advocates had been battling over for years. The Humane Society of the United States has been working to get a law passed requiring that those who set traps properly mark them and check them once every 24 hours. It is now against the law to use of snares on public property, or private property without permission of the landowner.

?Without a requirement that these devices have identification, it is virtually impossible to hold anyone accountable,? said Inga Gibson of the Hawaii chapter.

Conservation groups who use snares as a tool to help protect native ecosystems are against the idea.

?A requirement to check snares on a daily basis in a remote native forest is not practically feasible,? said Mark Fox of the Hawaii Nature Conservancy.