I've tested this on multiple 'Naked Brutality' runs, and maddened animals will never trip traps, but will always move deftly between them, not even slowing down at all. I understand that some people had a problem with wild animals tripping traps, but even that doesn't sound like a problem to me. If you put a trap somewhere an animal could wander it might set it off, that sounds more natural than all animals avoiding all traps all the time. This is also not even a problem when the animal happens to be a squirrel or rat or something small, just beat it to death. But even predatory animals hunting your only player character will nimbly avoid traps to rip out their throat.
Further, the item description; Animals can sense these when calm.
Am I wrong, or is maddened manhunting supposed to be a "calm" state?
What is the point of laying traps if there are some random threats who just dodge them outright?
This behavior is working as intended for RimWorld.
Traps are mostly useful against raids. You can also make trapped chokepoints these animals can't avoid.
True, that makes sense. I would just say that the description is a little bit misleading and perhaps could be changed.
"Maddened/Manhunting" doesn't exactly fit the description of an animal in a "calm" state, especially if they are manhunting for revenge.
I put in a note to do a clarity pass on the trap description, thanks for bringing up the issue.