Yesterday, Scottish Environment Minister Gillian Martin MSP gave evidence to the Rural Affairs Committee on the Government’s proposed ban on snares and an extension of powers to the SSPCA as part of its Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill (here).
The video recording is available to watch here and a transcript should be available in the next day or so. [Update: transcript now available at foot of this blog post]
It was an assured and confident performance by the Minister and I admired her patience in dealing with thinly-veiled, repeated attempts by some Committee members to portray the Government’s proposals as an ‘attack’ on the countryside, and especially on gamekeepers.
The Minister was clear – the use of snares, even those cynically re-named as ‘humane cable restraints’, is inherently cruel, no matter who is deploying the snare and no matter for what purpose.
It became apparent during the Minister’s evidence that following a meeting with stakeholders from the grouse moor management sector in September, they had wanted to propose an alternative to a complete ban on the use of snares and instead had ideas about a licensing scheme for their use. The Minister, in all fairness, invited them to submit their proposals in writing for her consideration.
The Minister told the Committee yesterday that she’d received the licensing proposal late on Monday evening (30 October 2023) and that she hadn’t yet had chance to review it but would do so this month, and in time for the Committee to consider her decision for their Stage 1 Report, which is due towards the end of November.
The snare-licensing proposal from the grouse moor lobby has now been published on the Rural Affairs Committee’s website, as follows:
What’s immediately apparent about the grouse moor managers’ proposed licensing scheme is that they pretend to be proposing “a narrow range of licensable purposes” [for the continued use of snares] but in fact what they propose is the continued use of snares for all the same purposes they currently use snares, i.e.
(i) preventing, or reducing the risk of, predation causing harm to wildlife or gamebirds,
(ii) preventing serious damage to livestock, foodstuffs for livestock, crops,
vegetables or fruit;
(iii) preventing, or reducing the risk of, disease in people or animals;
(iv) conserving, restoring, enhancing or managing the natural environment; and
(v) for scientific, research or educational purposes.
Fundamentally, they have failed to grasp the underlying argument against the use of snares, and that is, as the Minister made clear yesterday, that they are inherently cruel, whether they’re called ‘snares’ or ‘humane cable restraints’ (see here). There’s nothing in the grouse moor managers’ proposed licensing scheme that will end the indiscriminate suffering of animals caught in a snare, and nothing in there that should change her mind against a total ban on the use of all snares with no exceptions, as the Welsh Government has recently enacted.
Given the preliminary analysis of the responses made to the Scottish Government’s recent public consultation on the use of snares, it is also very clear that the public supports a ban on the use of all snares and does not support any exceptions to the ban:
Importantly, the public consultation did not ask the specific question about whether a licensing scheme for the use of snares should be considered (although question 4 comes close and the public responded with a resounding 73% ‘no’) so if the Minister is minded to give any credence to the grouse moor managers’ proposed licensing scheme, I think the Government would be obliged to consult on that specific option.
Accepting a last-ditch attempt by the grouse moor managers to water down the Government’s proposed legislation, without providing an opportunity for the public to comment, would be wide open for a legal challenge and I dare say there’d be a number of organisations prepared to take up such a challenge.
UPDATE 4th November 2023: The transcript from the evidence session on 1st Nov is now available:
UPDATE 9 November 2023: Scottish Environment Minister proposes full ban on all snares (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
Not much I can here apart from “brilliant nrws”
I’ve never read such utter tosh as this.
I am opposed to licensing the use of snares. However, in theory and in exceptional circumstances they could be used provided formal harm/benefit analysis was applied – the burden of proof being on the applicant. Rather like the approach which is taken with animals in research – demonstrate that the likely benefit (eg a new vaccine for malaria) justifies the use of several hundred mice, for example.
Indeed, one might argue that such an approach should be adopted for the killing of all wildlife. Which would almost certainly mean that seeking a licence to use snares to catch foxes because they were eating a few of your pheasants would be rejected. We know the harm but where’s the benefit?
Some people just seem not to notice the way the wind is blowing, do they?
The trouble with doing any sort of deal with the Hunting Lobby is that time and experience have combined to inform us that they are not to be trusted in keeping to the spirit of any agreement be it involving fox hunting, muirburn, joint projects with conservation organisation, lead shot or any ,other activity.
They know how hard it is to enforce the law given the nature of the isolated terrain in which they work and the relative ease with which crimes can and are committed and which remain undetected. In areas where illegality is common the lack of detection and convictions are legion and their own behaviour concerning other laws and practises means that nothing but a complete ban would, force them into compliance. To be frank, if they told me it was raining I’d make my way to the window just to make sure that it was.
Anyhow, as you so rightly said, it was the cruelty aspect that leaves them with no defence and if they are banned outright even an army of sychophants would find it extremely difficult to get around that one.
Sofar, so good.
‘…and I dare say there’d be a number of organisations prepared to take up such a challenge.’ Heh
There is no reason to consider the shooting lobby proposals given the overwhelming response of the public in opposing any such use. The shooting lobby in Wales are inevitably relying on the Curlew question to try and get the law amended bu there are other more humane traps to catch foxes and the real reason for wanting snares is that it is a lazy way to catch foxes or anything else. They are banned everywhere else I believe and I can see only one legal use, to catch feral gamekeepers and their employers where wildlife crime is suspected and hold them humanely until the authorities get there.
Here here I agree with you all, you’ve in a nutshell said it all and they have to be banned totally . Cruelty in any form to wildlife or any living creature is totally unacceptable xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx. As long as they are dispatched quickly ( hunting people’s terminology) .
What are these people on? Hardly any of them were interested in the appalling suffering of the animals and just asked such stupid and pointless questions. Good on the minister for sticking to her point about the animal cruelty
If anyone who follows this blog has not watched the video of the meeting I would strongly suggest that they should do so now. It was refreshing to see a Minister setting out quite clearly the basic principle that snaring involves unacceptable cruelty no matter who was undertaking it or for what purpose or reason. She made this point clearly and emphatically on a number of occasions.
Not least, it was beyond doubt that she had seen through the attempt to dress-up snares by referring to them in self-contradictory language, namely ‘humane cable restraints’. Adding any number of swivels and other fancy bits does not hide the fact that the business end is a wire noose which tightens around body parts of any creature unfortunate enough to become caught in one. A point not mentioned is that any creature bigger than that for which the snare is designed is likely to suffer choking, as well as restraint, as the stop on the cable would not have come into effect.
Having listened to the Minister I would fully expect the SLE representations to fall at the first hurdle , this being nothing more than a thinly disguised version of the status quo. Consigning snares to history cannot come soon enough and it is time that SLE et al accepted this.
For the Minister to reverse or reconsider her clearly stated views in the light of this crap would stink to high heaven of levers being pulled and horsetrading at the top level. A bit like when Alan Clark dropped his Fur Order, when Thatcher told him to.
Snares are inherently inhumane and need banning. Whatever argument these people use there is one simple fact that they cannot deny: no gamekeeper has ever, or would ever, check those snares often enough to mitigate the suffering of any animal caught by them within a reasonable timeframe.