SAN ANTONIO -- A local animal protection organization voiced its concern over the need to help preserve one of Texas’ largest wild animals.

Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, a Kendalia-based organization that houses and cares for displaced animals, as well as advocates for animal rights, said cougars are being killed in large numbers, often in especially inhumane ways.

“They are caught in snares, they are caught by steel-jaw leg-hole traps, they are shot, they are poisoned,” said Lynn Cuny, who runs the organization. “Anything goes with wiping out these species in this state, and it is wrong and it needs to stop or there will be no more cougars in the state of Texas.”

The snares that are set up tightly put a stranglehold on wild animals. Cuny told KSAT 12 News that cougars are often drawn to the traps by poisonous chemicals and are tortured for up to six hours before they die. Many ranchers use the snares to protect their own livestock from cougars, who are the biggest predator amongst wild animals in Texas.

Cuny said she understood that ranchers need to protect their animals from the predators, but they need to find a better way to do it.

“We think it’s important to protect the wildlife and protect the goats and the sheep,” Cuny said. “We don’t want to say one should be sacrificed for the other, but we don’t want either of them harmed.”

She said there are many non-lethal alternatives to defend small animals from cougars. Some ranchers use donkeys, llamas or big dogs to scare cougars away. Others corral their smaller animals in a protected area until they are large enough to defend themselves.

Cuny said the real key for protection must come from a higher power. Other states have formed laws that protect cougars. Some have outlawed the snares. Others have designated certain months off limits from cougar hunting, and a few have forbidden it altogether. Texas has no such laws.

“What we would love to see done is laws passed that would absolutely prohibit the use of cruel snares and other cruel devices that catch wild animals indiscriminately and slowly, tortuously kill them,” she said.

She said she has petitioned Texas Parks and Wildlife numerous times to help abolish the snares and poisons and regulate cougar hunting. She said they have refused to give it much attention.

No officials have taken an official count on the state’s cougar population. But Cuny said if the use of snares and unregulated hunting continue, they could soon become endangered.

Cuny has a number of cougars on a six-acre habitat at Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation. They are all animals that were previously owned as pets and unsuited to be sent back to the wild.