Having campaigned for a ban on snares for the best part of ten years, I thought I’d been exposed to the worst of these cruel traps. I was wrong. If ever anyone needed any persuading that snares are indiscriminate killers that have no place in modern society then this recent example is it.
On 18 March a member of the public came across a brown hare which had been trapped and killed in a snare near Cumnock. What then emerged is a heartbreaking story which illustrates the devastation caused by the continued use of these barbaric traps.
In this tragic example the hare gave birth while trapped but sadly was unable to look after her young and died from her injuries. The tiny leveret – just a few hours old - was found cowering next to its mother, clearly terrified. The leveret was taken to Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Trust in Beith, Ayrshire but unfortunately despite their best efforts to save the tiny creature, it died a few days later.
Gay Christie, one of the directors of Hessilhead told me this is one of the saddest cases they’ve had at Hessilhead. She said: “That mother hare must have suffered horrendously, giving birth while snared and unable to care for her young. The leveret was so tiny and frightened when brought into care. It is unbelievable that we can inflict such cruelty on wildlife.”
Aside from the fact this is such a tragic, heartbreaking example of the pain and suffering snares inflict, it is particularly frustrating that we are reporting this story exactly two years to the day since regulations came into force in Scotland which were supposed to make snaring better. The regulations were introduced under the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) (WANE) Act 2011 and are due to be reviewed in 2016.
Scotland has the most stringent legislation on the use of snares in the UK, yet clearly as this case shows, this is not enough to eradicate the severe animal welfare impacts. The hare in this example was caught in an illegal snare. It was illegal because it was not tagged. ID tags were introduced with the regulations two years ago as one of the measures which would supposedly reduce the welfare impacts of snaring. It’s pretty obvious though that tag would not have alleviated the suffering or prevented this horrific cruelty in any way.
When the WANE Act passed through the Scottish Parliament, OneKind argued that anything short of an outright ban would simply be regulating cruelty. This tragic example sadly illustrates how right we were. This is not an isolated case though, this sort of cruelty happens day in, day out. Whether it’s a pregnant hare, a fox or even a pet cat – animals are suffering at an alarming rate. OneKind operates SnareWatch, a website where people can report incidents of snaring. The regularity with which reports are submitted highlights how little the regulations have done to prevent suffering caused by snares. OneKind will continue our snaring campaign until the whole of the UK is snare free.
If you witness an animal trapped in a snare, or have concerns about illegal snaring, you can report these directly onto our SnareWatch site. The more information we have on snare use in the UK the stronger an argument we can make for a ban.