Another opinion piece by a member of REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform, was published over the weekend, this time in the Scotsman and written by Robbie Marsland, Director of League Against Cruel Sports Scotland.
It’s reproduced here:
Snares are used to legally kill an estimated 200,000 animals a year – including non-target species like badgers, dogs and cats – so that more grouse are there to be shot for so-called ‘sport’.
A thin loop of steel wire sits in an entrance to a mound of rotting animals. It’s a snare set to capture foxes drawn to the smell of what is known as a “stink pit”. Despite being cruel, primitive and indiscriminate, snares are currently legal in Scotland.
In theory, foxes are simply detained by the snares and wait peacefully for up to 24 hours for a gamekeeper to arrive and shoot them with a shotgun. In theory. In practice, foxes struggle and mutilate themselves as the wire cuts into their flesh.
Snares are laid on animal pathways as well as around stink pits. This means that any animal using the pathways or attracted by the smell of carrion can get caught by these indiscriminate devices. Badgers, which are protected species, are trapped in snares so often that there’s a name for the distinctive area of flattened ground around a snare made by their death throes. It’s called a “doughnut”. Cats and dogs are also common victims of these pernicious implements.
So why are snares still legal? For years, the League Against Cruel Sports and our friends at animal welfare charity OneKind have been calling for them to be consigned to history. Scotland has to some extent led the way in that it was the first part of the UK to regulate their use. But that lead has now gone with the Welsh Government recently announcing an outright ban on snares – the first UK nation to take this step.
The Scottish Government has the opportunity to catch up with the Welsh example. The Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill currently approaching the end of its first stage in parliament provides the government with a vehicle to ban the use of snares. The government has acknowledged this and says that it will announce whether they intend to ban snares or not in the next couple of months.
One of the main reasons that foxes are targeted by these horrific devices is to make sure there are more grouse to be shot for sport. The ‘glorious’ 12th of August is the beginning of the grouse shooting season that goes on until December. But the killing of any animal that is thought to reduce the number of grouse goes on all year round.
A 14-month League Against Cruel Sports study of seven shooting estates in Scotland revealed the use of a massive array of traps and snares aimed at foxes, stoats, weasels and crows. Judging by what was found, we estimate more than 200,000 animals are killed on all Scottish shooting estates each year. The survey also revealed that just under 40 per cent of the dead animals found in traps were “non-target” species like badgers, cats and dogs, or even hedgehogs, that do no harm to grouse.
As the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill is debated in the Scottish Parliament over the coming months, the League Against Cruel Sports looks forward to snares being banned and questions being asked about the ethics of killing hundreds of thousands of animals killed each year to ensure there are more grouse to be shot for so-called “sport”.
Robbie Marsland is director of the League Against Cruel Sports Scotland
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
Despicable
Utterly barbaric but widely used throughout the UK . Should be illegal and the breaking of laws heftily fined .
So difficult to police on any estate and the owners know this
Why not ask the RSPB how many foxes , stoats weasels they target to protect birds
Kevin, don’t try and conflate the predator control carried out by RSPB with that of the grouse shooting industry. They’re not comparable, for many reasons.
See this blog on predator control by RSPB:
https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/actionfornature/posts/the-conservationist-s-dilemma-an-update-on-the-science-policy-and-practice-of-the-impact-of-predators-on-wild-birds-8
Kevin how many cats and dais so the RSPB kill
Deep, deep yawn! Boring, boring, you are so boringly predictable. The simple fact is that, unlike any and every shooting estate, the RSPB publish their figures on an annual basis. They do not use snares.
That’s all they have, Simon. A small, discredited list of lies and distortions, which they all trot out, on a random basis, in the hope that nobody remembers the last time the came out with it.
What was that Einstein quote about insanity?….
Snares are banned in all the rest of Europe, it’s time England and Scotland followed the Welsh lead on this.
So why does REVIVE support licensing driven grouse shooting i.e. the perpetuation/legitimisation of a principal driver for snares? That is muddle-headed thinking on steroids. I despair.
Incidentally, a recent Wild justice poll (which I thought it may have been mentioned by now on RPUK?) of about 7,000 people found that circa 90% of respondents (with almost identical results for both RSPB members and no-members…) wanted a ban of DGS instead of licensing. RSPB and REVIVE take note.
“So why does REVIVE support licensing driven grouse shooting i.e. the perpetuation/legitimisation of a principal driver for snares? That is muddle-headed thinking on steroids.”
How does licensing driven grouse shooting – as in the proposed Bill – exclude the possibility of also banning snares?
The report claims: “The government has acknowledged this and says that it will announce whether they intend to ban snares or not in the next couple of months.”
The Welsh Labour Government has already announced the banning of snares, but it has not banned shooting… or even licensed it (yet).
“How does licensing driven grouse shooting – as in the proposed Bill – exclude the possibility of also banning snares?”
It doesn’t. But, what about all the other killing devices used to support DGS, not to mention the killing of the grouse themselves?
So, are you happy that hundreds of thousands of red grouse and other wild animals/predators continue to be slaughtered each year as long as this ‘sport’ is licensed? This is analogous to debating the type of harpoon to be used when killing whales instead of stopping the killing of whales i.e. the driver…
What are your views about the RSPB and REVIVE being completely out of step with their members/supporters regarding DGS licensing as highlighted by the WJ report?
“But, what about all the other killing devices used to support DGS, not to mention the killing of the grouse themselves?”
But whataboutery? If you had participated in the two consultations employed by the Scottish Government and one of its Parliamentary committees, you will have come across several questions concerning every type of trap used in what they termed ‘wildlife management’.
Also… there were opportunities for respondents to express their views on killing grouse (which I took).
“So, are you happy that hundreds of thousands of red grouse and other wild animals/predators continue to be slaughtered each year as long as this ‘sport’ is licensed?”
That wasn’t the tenor of my response to either of the two consultations. Responses were to be made public, so why not look them up?
“What are your views about the RSPB and REVIVE being completely out of step with their members/supporters regarding DGS licensing as highlighted by the WJ report?”
Really? Were the ‘WJ report’ respondents randomly chosen? A – No. How many Revive members/supporters were included in the ‘WJ report’? A – The survey did not ask if respondents were members of Revive.
You have no idea what the majority of either the RSPB or Revive members/supporters think about the licensing driven grouse shooting. Wild Justice say “We would not claim that these 7303 people are representative of the population as a whole nor necessarily of the RSPB membership”. Yet, you do… but without the necessary evidence.
The questions which the Scottish Government asked are centred on the possibility of licensing driven grouse shooting. It has NOT even offered to license other forms of shooting. And it certainly has NOT offered to ban any or all forms of shooting (which would be my personal choice – I do not approve one little bit of the much-touted ‘walked up shooting’, favoured by some).
Both the RSPB and Revive have responded, and given advice to members, within those constraints. Neither has opposed a ban, and the consultations gave opportunities for respondents to extrapolate on their views if they wished (as I did). The RSPB has publicly stated that should licensing fail in stopping illegal and environmental unsustainable practises in Scotland and England by 2025 then it will call for a ban on driven grouse shooting.
https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/policy-insight/england-westminster/farming-and-land-use/driven-grouse-shooting/
Additionally, the Scottish Government also included questions on the use of snares. Both the RSPB and Revive provided their opinions on that (see above).
But you claim that it is somehow ‘muddle-headed’ to oppose snares but ‘support’ licensing (see above), even when the context is within the parameters of the Scottish Government’s consultation and proposed legislation.
[Ed: Stephen, enough. We’ve had this discussion over and over again – I’ve explained my position and you disagree with it, that’s fine. Now please stop spamming my blog]
In complete agreement about banning the use of snares in England and Scotland. Animals and birds, many different species are tortured and killed in snares. While dealing with wildlife surveys on farmland I discreetly disable any I see on mammal paths and in hedges.
Good lass
It’s a contentious issue I’ve written and emailed the government DEFRA everyone I can haven’t even had a response nothing will change until these backward unacceptable traditions grouse shooting hunting are banned not licensed or done under smokescreens the government and the law has to be changed . Cruelty is not acceptable end of . I’m in the league against cruel sports animal aid etc etc we just have to keep plugging away.
I simply do not understand how a practice which has a catch rate of 40% non-target species can possibly be legal. How come that the capture, resulting in death, of a non-target species is not an offence and punishable as such?
A lot of that figure for non-target species caught will likely be rabbits* and brown hares*, which it is (regrettably) legal to snare anyway. However, the numbers of wild animals caught that it is illegal to snare (badgers, deer, otters) and domestic animals (sheep/lambs, cats, etc) are still very high. The general point is 100% correct IMO that most snaring operations around the country are inherently indiscriminate and fundamentally cruel.
*when caught in fox snares which are obviously too big & not intended for them, it is often their back legs descending during the “hop” that makes contact and tightens the snare around their waists. But then again who cares about rabbits?