where do i get traps? i used up the 3 traps the game gave me and had come face to face with a few animals that i wanted.

Honestly, traps are a rip off. The only place worth using them is in the fest zone (when it is open) and The lost grove (which is a long way off for you). You buy them in any of the towns (or from the merchant in the fest zone) and they are quite expensive when you are just starting out. Plus, most pets will run rather than be caught with low level traps.

If you are looking for pets, I would recommend looking for pets for sale with the advanced search function (blue writing under the search button, top left). You can then search for specific species and traits.
https://www.sylestia.com/search/
That way you will actually get a pet.

If you are interested in a egg from any of my pets (other than max stats), let me know and I will be happy to breed you one. Just be careful and not get too lost in my mess of stables. :-P

Traps are useless unless you're in fest zones. If you still want any, you can go to esior's haven, click marketplace and purchase a lesser trap for 1 k. Then you can catch a sylesti. However, its better just searching on advanced search. There's a lot of good pets there for less than 10k(pretty cheap right?)

Where are the fest zones though?

they're fest(ival) zones. There are four fest zones, one for each of the four seasonal festivals, and each one is only accessible during their respective festival. During the fest they're accessed via the Seasonal Festival link in the Explore dropdown list (which is itself only accessible during festivals and other site events)