Kind of awkward to release anything, had me worried when we caught a fox as i needed to get my fingers under the flap to open it proper, made sure I had a good pair of gloves on in case the fox tried to bite. The little trap isn't very sensitive to smaller animals, we were trying to get rid of some squirrels around our place, I had to set the trap so it was barely latched to catch them, with it fully latched they were way to light to set it off. They did do the trick for us, not the best quality, but I wasn't about to spend $100 on the good traps to catch a fox and a couple squirrels only to leave it sitting in storage for until the next time i need to catch something, and after 7 years on our acreage this was the first time we needed to get rid of something.