Tinkering with cruelty

Published on Sunday 24 February 2008 20:27

While deploring the environment minister's refusal to ban snares in Scotland, I welcome your comprehensive reporting of the implications of his decision and reaction to it (21 February). Michael Russell's failure to heed the opinion of 75 per cent of the Scottish public surveyed on the need for an outright ban on this inhumane practice does not bode well for the Scottish Government's handling of animal welfare issues nor its claim to be in touch with the electorate.

I also take issue with his criticism of Advocates for Animals and the League Against Cruel Sports for apparently not co-operating with him over his "compromise" of technical changes to snares. A total ban is the only moral and workable solution. By analogy, in the human world you either support or oppose capital punishment: you don't tinker with the equipment to make it more acceptable.

Those of who, like the great majority of the Scottish electorate, find snaring in any form both barbaric and ineffective as a tool for animal management will continue to campaign for an outright ban, the only acceptable solution in today's society.

ROY JEFFS

Bankhead Terrace

Forfar, Angus