Press release from REVIVE coalition partner League Against Cruel Sports (5th June 2023):
ANIMAL WELFARE CHARITY RELEASES FOOTAGE EXPOSING THE GRUESOME REALITY OF SNARING
Scottish Parliament urged to use Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill to ban cruel traps
The League Against Cruel Sports Scotland has released footage exposing the grim reality of snaring. The footage shows a dead Badger with a snare around its abdomen just a short distance from a stink pit full of rotting animal carcasses surrounded by thin wire snares.
The charity says the footage highlights the urgent need for a ban on snaring under the new Wildlife Management and Muriburn (Scotland) Bill which last week began its stage 1 evidence sessions. Although perfectly legal, the footage illustrates that even when used lawfully, snares inflict severe cruelty and suffering.
The video footage was filmed just last week on moorland near Coulter, South Lanarkshire by the League’s field investigators. Commenting on what is seen in the film, Robbie Marsland, Director of the League Against Cruel Sports, Scotland said:
“Although we can’t be clear of the exact circumstances surrounding this Badger’s death, what is in absolutely no doubt is that this animal suffered a slow, painful and traumatic death.
“The last hours and possibly days of this creature’s life would have been spent in fear and agony as it tried to free itself from a primitive, indiscriminate trap before eventually succumbing to its injuries.
“No amount of regulation will stop snares from being cruel and indiscriminate traps which is why only a ban will stop animals suffering. This footage, which shows a scenario which is perfectly legal under the existing regulations, proves that regulating snares is simply regulating cruelty.”
The Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee is currently taking evidence on the Scottish Government’s proposed wildlife management legislation. Robbie Marsland added:
“The Scottish Government’s Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill is an opportunity to rid our countryside of these deadly traps once and for all. The Government has explored this issue several times in recent years but always stopped short of an outright ban. Now is the opportunity to be bold, and put animal welfare first.
“The scope of the Bill has the potential to end a number of unpalatable practices which go on in our countryside to sustain sport shooting such as the use of stink pits to lure unsuspecting animals into deadly traps. This type of activity has no place in modern society and we hope as the Bill progresses and undergoes further scrutiny these opportunities won’t be missed.”
Scotland currently has the most stringent regulations on snare use, but despite this, protected species such as Badgers are regularly caught and killed by snares. Dr Elspeth Srirling from Scottish Badgers said:
“Badgers are strong animals and fight to escape, resulting in severe injuries where the wire noose cuts through skin and muscle tissue and into the body cavity leaving the badger to endure prolonged agonies, pain and a lingering death. Scottish Badgers has attended several incidents in recent years where multiple snares were used year after year to trap Badgers.
“Snare-users have had decades to demonstrate a willingness to do the right thing by avoiding positioning snares where Badgers are present, but they stubbornly resist. Banning their use and manufacture outright is the only option.”
A recent field study of ground predator control by the League found that 57,000 killing devices are deployed each day in Scotland representing the equivalent of over 10,000,000 active trapping and snaring days per year, with nearly half of animals killed being non-target species such as Hedgehogs, Dippers and Mistle Thrush.
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
You can have the most stringent laws in the world but unless they are enforced they are of no use. That the badger had clearly been in the trap for far longer than is lawful means that whomsoever set it has already broken the law.
To see GWCT et al describing them as “humane restraints” is just disgusting.
Simon, surely you’re confusing two issues with your comments? Yes, as you rightly say, if, as appears to be the case, a badger has been left for long enough to expire in a snare, then the law has be broken. Given that the individual snare should carry a tag identifying the user, I’d expect Police Scotland to be following up on this incident.
The reference by the likes of GWCT is to the latest generation of cable restraint that incorporate a breakaway device. These would literally breakaway in the event of capturing a badger, releasing it from the restraint.
If any legislation change is warranted, I’d suggest it should be to exactly prescribe the make up of permitted cable restraints, similar to the Spring Trapping Order, to mandate the use of the latest generation of cable restraint. This would make it illegal to use the old, simpler style of snare. It won’t stop some still using them, but they’ll simply be criminals, no ifs or buts.
You can tinker about with a few features, but a snare is still a snare. And for 90% of snares in use now these modifications would be totally irrelevant (one example, most are set not in the open but amongst branches / brash in woods around stinkpits where they tangle and twist up), as it is about the mentality and motivation of the person in choosing where and how to set them. If a young underkeeper or beatkeeper on a (self) important estate started away in his career setting snares with the honourably careful mindset of the GWCT researchers, the Headkeeper would either laugh his cap off or give him the boot for wasting valuable work time faffing about. To me these caveman nooses of varying designs have got to go 100%, and instead of flogging a dead horse trying to get a few more years out them before the (inevitable) ban comes anyway, a combined £££ funded research project by GWCT, RSPB (shock, horror), and other interested groups should be put into humane ways of controlling fox numbers in critical places at critical times, with a systematic / landscape scale management & monitoring plan.
The snare however set or described is a horrible trap and if as seems to often happen due to non compliance with the law on checking them a horrible death. Need to be banned ASAP if not sooner. Let us hope that the rubbish from the game lobby re Humane restraints is easily seen through and goes in the trash can.
A badger is a protected mammal, in this case killed recklessly. Surely this is against the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981 Schedule 6
I believe I am correct in saying that neither of the ‘public consultations’ – there were two, remember – asked whether snares (or live decoy traps) should be banned.
Shocking.
In the published response by ‘individuals’ to the Committee’s consultations the responses were 57.4% in favour of “additional regulation of the use of certain wildlife traps” (some people went further and called for a complete ban of certain wildlife traps) and 49.7% were in favour of the “proposed licensing system for the use of certain wildlife traps” (some people who were opposed to the licensing scheme said they would prefer a complete ban).
By simply avoiding the topic of whether snares (or live decoy traps) should be banned, both ‘consultations’ split the vote to some degree and muddied the issue.
That is how politicians try to steer the public…