Snare Quotes

Don’t just take our word for how cruel snares are, read what the bloodsport lobby say.

British Fields Sports Society / Countryside Alliance

“Foxes wounded by shooting or snaring are likely to suffer prolonged pain and distress, even if the injuries are not fatal.”

“Even if the snares works perfectly a fox could in theory be held struggling and partially strangled for almost 24 hours … When snared wild animals give every indication of profound fear … In such a state snared animals can and do injure themselves thrashing and terrified in snares for hours on end.”

“Indiscriminate snaring causes suffering to foxes and other mammals. Both snares and traps cause unavoidable stress for wild animals”.*

“Traps and snares are also non-selective. They can easily catch milking vixens, leaving the cubs to die of starvation, or other animals.”

“The same risks apply to snaring, in that the trapped animal may hurt itself trying to escape.”

*In the BFSS hunting video, there is an horrific clip of a fox in a terrible state that has been caught around its stomach by a snare. The BFSS admitted that the snare had been legally set by a gamekeeper.

Countryside Alliance’s Middle Way Group

“There are no units for measuring suffering, but when animals are caught in snares few die immediately. Suffering can last up to 24 hours and other animals are often caught by mistake.”

Jim Barrington – Countryside Alliance Animal Welfare Consultant

“Snares are vicious instruments which cause any animal caught in them to die in agony.”

Country Landowners Association

“Alternatives to shooting such as snaring, risk other wildlife as well as being largely ineffective for the purpose of controlling foxes. There is also the risk of a lingering death.”

Llangibby Castle Gamekeeper

“I am not saying that wiring (snaring) is not cruel. It is.”

Gamekeeping Books

“[Cat] owners should keep them at home or be prepared to accept the consequences”

“Once cats begin to hunt for game, their presence cannot be tolerated, and it is desirable that they be kept down. Great judiciousness, however, should be exercised by the gamekeeper, and when a domestic cat is trapped it ought quickly to be put out of sight and its fate kept secret.”

Huntsman

“The use of snares in particular is not only entirely non selective but as I have witnessed can cause horrific injuries, not only to foxes but other species from badgers, hares and otters to domestic cats and dogs.”

Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management

“Snaring and trapping – protracted incarceration with painful, progressive injury, dispatched at the end or worse, escape – injured and mutilated.”

Police Inspector Alan Stewart

“By-catch in snares is inevitable. There is no question that other mammals such as badgers, deer, pine martens and hedgehogs, and a variety of birds, especially pheasants, get caught in snares.”

Countryside Animal Welfare Group

“Snaring with a legal snare – one equipped with a “stop” that prevents strangulation – professionally and properly positioned causes the same stress and fear as trapping. An animal correctly snared will struggle violently to free itself, and it may wait many hours in a distressed state before being dispatched. However, snaring is a highly skilled method of control and unless the snare is correctly placed it can result in the animal being trapped by the leg and neck or around the body. As the animal struggles the snare tightens around the body which is bigger than the ‘stop’. By the time the snare is visited the animal is either in great pain or has died from its self-induced injuries.”

“Illegal home-made snares are more horrifying and cause the animal even greater pain before death. They do not have a ‘stop’ and the unfortunate animal tightens the wire noose round its neck in its desperate struggle to get free and strangles itself to death.”

“Another major disadvantage of the snare as a method of control is that it catches a high proportion of animals other than the target species. A recent test carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture found that 46% of animals caught in legal snares were not of the target species.”

Baroness Byford – Conservative

“Snaring is probably one of the worst ways in which an animal can die. They are left in agony, perhaps for a long time, dying from the snare injury, starvation, cold or exposure. It is estimated that of animals caught in snares, 50 per cent are species other than the target one. That is very worrying.”

and finally… non-bloodsport lobby quotes

The Duchess of Hamilton

“My husband and I have had personal experience of snares. In one case a female otter had been caught in a snare “accidentally” by poachers. She was caught around her middle but was still alive, and as she moved her wound gaped and her organs were falling out. In another case I found a kitten dead in a snare, which had cut through her flesh and disembowelled her as she tried to escape before she died.”

Conservative Animal Welfare

“The various types of manufactured and home made snares makes detailed legislation difficult and interpretation of legislation even more difficult. CAWG believes that the only way to prevent animal suffering that is commonly associated with the use of snares is to ban outright the use of snares in the UK.”

John McFall MP

“A video entitled “The A to Z of Fox Control” is advertised in country sports magazines, such as The Countryman’s Weekly , which is a trade member of the British Field Sports Society and is approved by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. The video recommends that snares are set using what is described as a “killing stick”, which is a post driven into the ground next to the snare so that, as the captured animal thrashes around in panic, it becomes entangled with the pole and is strangled to death. The device effectively turns a free-running snare into a lethal instrument, which operates in the same way as the illegal self-locking snare.”