#BanSnares | Hunt Investigation Team and Animal Aid

Animal Aid is launching a new campaign which calls for a ban on the manufacture, sale, possession and use of snares.”

Mirroring former MP Jim Dowd’s 2016 call in Parliament for a complete ban on snares, the superb Hunt Investigation Team (HIT) and animal rights organisation Animal Aid have launched a campaign to rid the countryside of the hundreds of thousands of wire nooses laid by the shooting industry to eradicate native predators.

We’ve written extensively about snares on this site and have been proud to host a guest post about snares written by HIT themselves (see – Hunt Investigation Team | #SnareAware). Snares are without doubt a component of the war on wildlife that is waged in the countryside. They are cruel, and they are indiscriminate. While mainly used to ‘target’ foxes (an animal demonised by the shooting industry), they also trap hares, badgers, cats and dogs. They have been banned across most of Europe. They would have been banned here if pro-bloodsports MPs hadn’t lobbied on behalf of shooting to push through a widely ignored and discredited ‘Code of Practice’ instead.

Hundreds of snares can be laid on a single estate. There are thousands of shooting estates across the UK. Used year-round they must be trapping hundreds of thousands of wild animals every year. We don’t know how many though, because the shooting industry is under no obligation to record either the number of individuals or which species that have been caught.

As we said in a tweet yesterday, no-one ‘needs’ to use snares. Thier use is driven by a profit motive. Thousands upon thousands of wild animals being trapped and killed so that estates can sell an ever growing number of pheasants, partridges, and grouse to clients who shoot them for a day’s entertainment.

This campaign is only just getting started. It will be ramped up until they are eradicated and our wildlife is safe from the blight of snares.

In the meantime please visit the campaign page on the Animal Aid website where you’ll find links to contact your MP and local councillors to ask them to #BanSnares