New SnareWatch initiative will show the truth
Tragic news from Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue in Ayrshire this week. Wildlife specialist staff were called out to a snared otter at a location on the Clyde coast. The otter had managed to break the snare away from its anchor and move away from where it was originally set. Despite being rescued, given emergency veterinary treatment and provided with care at Hessilhead, it died.
It is not yet known whether the snare was legal or who set it (under new wildlife laws in Scotland, it will soon be a legal requirement for all snares to carry a tag to allow the authorities to identify their owners). We don’t know either whether the snare had a stop on it. But we do know that it was badly frayed and twisted, rendering it effectively self-locking.
So we cannot say at this stage whether this was an illegal snare or one that was technically legal but inexpertly set. Whether it was a case of deliberate cruelty or an otter ( a European protected species)in the wrong place at the wrong time. It really makes no difference. The otter’s story is a tragedy and in our view would be equally tragic if the animal concerned was a fox, which was presumably the targeted species. The fact that it was an otter highlights the indiscriminate nature of these primitive traps, but is not relevant when we think of the individual animal that suffered and died. And we think of the other animals that are suffering in this manner, unseen and unrecorded, all over the countryside.
This is why OneKind has set up the new SnareWatch website – a monitoring facility to gather, publish and analyse reports about snares from all over Britain. The intention is to show the truth about the nature and extent of snaring and ensure that - when we next get a chance to change the law and ban snares - no one will be able to say there is a lack of evidence.
We are delighted that our good friend Brian May has lent his support to SnareWatch, sending an uncompromising message about cruelty. But - given that the Scottish Parliament could have banned snaring earlier this year, and opted instead for complicated regulations - it gives us no pleasure at all to say “we told you so”.
