Ban cruel snares used to kill animals as Glorious Twelfth starts shooting season

11 August 2023 , 23:01

418     0

The Glorious Twelfth marks the start of the grouse shooting season (Image: PA)

Campaigners today stepped up calls for snares to be banned as the grouse shooting season gets underway.

Bloodsports enthusiasts will take to estates and moorland across the country to mark the Glorious Twelfth, when the red grouse season begins. The League Against Cruel Sports used the milestone to demand a block on gamekeepers deploying cruel devices to trap and kill animals which target grouse chicks.

The Mirror told in June how the Welsh Government was set to ban snares - a measure unanimously backed by the Senedd - becoming the first UK nation to outlaw the gear. Animal welfare activists want other administrations to follow Wales’ lead.

Red grouse can be shot from today (Getty Images)

The League Against Cruel Sports’ head of public affairs Will Morton said: “The grouse shooting industry litters the nation’s moorland with deadly snares which cause so much suffering to our wildlife. It’s time for change and for the UK Government to emulate the Welsh Government and implement a ban on these cruel animal traps, a move which would be welcomed by the majority of the public.”

The charity said research showed nearly three quarters of animals caught in snares were not the intended target species. They included hares, badgers and even people’s pets. “They tighten around the neck, torso or legs of the animal causing immense pain and suffering to their trapped victims for hours or days before the animal is either shot or faces a lingering death,” said the League.

Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade

Last year, MPs held a parliamentary debate on banning snares after an online petition was signed more than 100,000 times. TV presenter and wildlife campaigner Chris Packham told the Mirror at the time: “These Stone Age contraptions really have no place in today’s Britain. They are cruel and barbaric, trapping something like 1.7 million animals every year and, in the process, causing horrendous suffering to wildlife and domestic animals too.”

Mr Morton said today: “It would be a popular animal welfare measure to ban snares and end the cruelty caused by these barbaric devices – like landmines they kill and maim indiscriminately. The grouse shooting industry can no longer justify the cruelty it inflicts on wildlife and the damage it causes to the environment, simply so it can blast hundreds of thousands of grouse out of the sky every year.”

A Countryside Alliance spokesman: “Snares used in accordance with Defra’s code of best practice are a restraining, rather than killing, device, and they are one of a range of essential measures used to manage certain species - the control of which underpins agricultural production, farm animal husbandry, the sustainable harvesting of game birds and the protection of species of the highest conservation concern, including the curlew. Specifically, it is a legitimate and effective form of fox control, especially in habitats where other control techniques are either ineffective or impracticable.”

* Follow Mirror Politics onSnapchat,Tiktok,TwitterandFacebook

Ben Glaze