NGO responds to Labour's announcement on the banning of snares

The Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Labour’s

Steve Reed, has announced his party’s plan to ban the use of snares. Amid a raft of ‘animal welfare’ promises, he stated that Labour plans to: “Ban the use of snare traps, an extremely painful thin wire noose used to trap rabbits and foxes”.

 

The modern equivalent is the humane cable restraint (HCR) – a device that causes no harm to the captured animal, is more humane than a cage trap and is selective, therefore only capturing the target animal. Whatever an HCR catches should be not just alive, but physically unharmed.

 

The Labour government in Wales took the decision to ban humane cable restraints, despite all the evidence showing that they are a vital conservation tool. The NGO fought Welsh government through a Judicial Review because we believe that HCRs are a vital tool in the toolbox for land managers and gamekeepers if we are to have any hope for the future of ground-nesting bird populations in Wales. Wales has the highest density of foxes in Europe and there is irrefutable evidence that the fox is the main predator of curlew eggs, fledglings and even adult birds.

Discussing Steve Reed’s announcement on snares, Tim Weston, Director for Environment, Policy and Politics at the NGO said: "This seems to be a cheap vote-winning idea rather than a logically thought-through policy. Humane cable restraints are a vital tool to protect species such as curlew and lapwing which are declining mainly due to predation. Hill farmers are already facing hardships and removing their most effective tool to protect lambs shows a total lack of support for rural communities".

 

The NGO will be making presentations to Labour party candidates to explain the benefits of keeping humane cable restraints.

 

ENDS