A rule that prevents trappers from shooting animals held in live traps on Sundays prolongs their suffering and must be changed, an industry group says.

Canadian trappers spend millions of dollars testing traps to make sure they are humane, Dale Clark, president of the New Brunswick Trappers and Fur Harvesters Federation, told CBC News during a convention that brought hundreds of New Brunswickers who make their living in the trade to Fredericton.

But those efforts are thwarted on Sundays, Clark said, when trappers can't carry a .22 calibre rifle into the woods to put the trapped animals out of their misery.

"A lot of people may not believe it, but we love the wildlife and we try to treat it with respect. We want to dispatch that animal as quickly as possible. We do not want that animal to go through any more stress than what it has to," Clark said at the convention, which included a demonstration on how to conceal a paw trap under winter snow

Because hunting laws won't let trappers carry a gun into the woods on Sundays, they must bludgeon live-trapped animals with a bat or an axe.

"If you don't hit them properly they'll end up suffering more because they are trying to get away," said Randy Mersereau, who works as a federal animal trap tester. "You have to hit them pretty good, and with a .22 it's instant."

Clark said his federation will lobby the provincial government to change its laws, noting the previous four governments ignored the problem.