Countryside Alliance Ireland - love the countryside

The Northern Ireland Environment Committee during its clause by clause scrutiny of the new Wildlife and Natural Environment Bill voted yesterday to ban the use of snares. We believe that this is an ill conceived decision and one which has beendriven by the Animal Rights Activists.

We presented evidence to the Environment Committee on the use the snares and highlighted that the use of snares is a valuable means for land management. At a time when the Committee were also placing the Curlew and the Golden Plover on to schedule 5, we are unable to comprehend their logic in this decision to ban snaring as both these birds are ground nesting and evidence has shown the decline in the numbers of these birds is due to predation.

Are the Animal Rights Activists going to control predators? Well the answer is No -  they will walk away and start to concentrate on something else like Angling.

At the moment snaring is subject to legal restrictions and when properly practised is an effective and humane form of pest and in particular, fox control. Fox control is necessary in order to ensure that damage to game, wildlife and livestock by fox predation is reduced to acceptable levels, particularly at vulnerable times of the year e.g. nesting and lambing time.

It is the responsibility of all those involved in fox control to ensure their methods are legal, humane and carried out with sensitivity and respect for other countryside users and wildlife.Without snaring, fox and rabbit numbers will increase because other methods cannot make up the gap in control.

Opponents of snaring claim it is an indiscriminate method of pest control that regularly catches non-target species. This is false. A well designed snare, set correctly, is a highly effective and targeted method of restraining foxes and rabbits until they can be humanely dispatched.

We asked the Environment Committee to refer to legislation as it relates to snaring in Scotland; snares have to be free-running and must have a stop, so they cannot tighten beyond a prescribed width for restraint only. New snare designs are also being developed that will allow any non-target animals to break away. It is estimated that snaring accounts for 30% of all foxes controlled by gamekeepers and shoot managers each year and on some land where it would be difficult to use other methods, this figure is as high as 75%.If snaring is banned, we will face a huge battle to prevent increased fox predation of ground-nesting birds, and leverets.

Countryside Alliance Ireland opposes any attempt to ban the use of legal snares in Northern Ireland. We urge all our members to contact the Minister of the Environment, Edwin Poots, to make their voices heard and urge him not to ban the use of snares.  

We call on the Minister to withstand the pressure of the Animal Rights Activists and to implement a licensing system to allow snaring to continue under licence.