So far this year two runners have been injured by the snares – wire nooses intended to catch foxes which prey on red grouse – on open-access land owned by a large shooting estate in the Peak District National Park.
These injuries have highlighted the ongoing debate about the use of snares and the issue of what gets trapped in them.
An investigation by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) uncovered 100 snares set in a small area which is often frequented by runners, ramblers and dog walkers.
The setting of snares is legal and bound by the Countryside Act 1981. It stipulates that they have to be of a type that are free running and slacken once an animal is trapped.
The Act also says that they must be inspected every day and snared foxes must be killed quickly and humanely by a shot from a rifle at close range.
More controversially, though, snares often catch other animals. In the same area LACS found several ‘stink pits’ which contained the bodies of dead animals designed to attract foxes to the snares.
Among these bodies were remains of mountain hares, and the investigators also found a number of dead mountain hares laid out on paths near snares to act as a lure for foxes.
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