Snare point

YOUR report (5 June) of a deer found dead in a snare makes depressingly familiar reading. It appears that this poor animal was the victim of an illegal snare. However, legal snares also catch deer and many other non-target animals.

Regardless of codes, regulations and supposed “best practice”, snares remain not only inhumane but inherently indiscriminate.

A recent Defra report into snaring in England and Wales found an astonishingly high rate of non-target capture. In one field trial, out of 44 capture events, only 14 involved the target species – foxes – while 30 others were non-target animals including badgers, hare, pheasant, deer and a domestic dog. The Scottish SPCA has recently reported that, out of 65 snaring incidents investigated in a 12-month period, 70 per cent of the victims were non-target species. 

Both SnareWatch and the Scottish SPCA report that the most common non-targets are badgers (a protected species) and domestic cats.

Nonetheless the Scottish Government continues to support snaring and contends that incoming provisions (such as training courses which last for less than three hours, are delivered by gamekeepers, and include no specialist animal welfare content) will be sufficient to solve the problems of snares. They will not. Snares are the least acceptable face of so-called wildlife management (a hotly contested title, many would say) and it is to our shame that they remain legal in Scotland.

Libby Anderson

Policy officer, OneKind

Craighill Gardens

Edinburgh