Cruel snares set to protect profitable grouse moors are trapping innocent domestic pets – the hidden victims of the hunting industry.
The indiscriminate traps are used by gamekeepers to stop predators from eating prized pheasant, partridge and grouse before they are released for hunting parties to shoot.
But the wire snares tighten around any animal that happens upon them – including badgers, deer, dogs and cats, which can be left vulnerable and writhing in agony for hours at a time.
As gamekeepers gear up for the “Glorious Twelfth” start of the red grouse shooting season on Tuesday, campaigners are urgently renewing calls for a ban on the barbaric traps.
League Against Cruel Sports chief Joe Duckworth said: “The cruelty associated with grouse shooting doesn’t stop there; badgers, foxes, deer and even our much-loved pets are killed or injured through the use of snaring to protect game stocks.”
Up to 60 per cent of animals caught in snares are not “target species”, meaning the snares were not set to catch them. Snares need only be checked once a day by law, so trapped animals are left for up to 24 hours until they are released or put out of their misery by gamekeepers….. See entire article here.