Tuesday 4 February 2008
PUBLIC OPINION GOES UP IN SMOKE FOLLOWING SNARING ANNOUCEMENT
Animal welfare campaigners will be joined outside the Scottish Parliament today (Tuesday) by MSPs as they burn responses to a Scottish Executive Consultation on snaring. The event will highlight the lack of regard the Government has shown towards public feeling on this major animal welfare issue which has effectively allowed public opinion to go up in smoke.
On 20th February 2007, Michael Russell MSP, Minister for Environment announced he would not be banning the cruel practice of snaring but instead implementing regulations for their continued use. This decision came despite 70 per cent of respondents to a public consultation calling for a complete ban.
A public opinion poll commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports also found that 75 per cent of people in Scotland thought the use of snares should be made illegal. A nationwide campaign led jointly by Advocates for Animals and the League generated thousands of emails, postcards and letters to the Minister calling for a ban. These views have all been effectively ignored as the Government has chosen not to use its powers to ban snares.
A public petition which has collected over 7000 signatures will today be presented to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee by Advocates for Animals and the League Against Cruel Sports. The petition is supported by Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Trust, Scottish Badgers, the International Otter Survival Fund and the Hare Preservation Trust.
Scotland Campaigner for the League Against Cruel Sports, Louise Robertson said: “We are bitterly disappointed the Government has chosen not to make snares illegal but the campaign continues and we hope the Petitions Committee will listen to the arguments we put to them and make this a Parliamentary issue”.
Libby Anderson, Political Director for Advocates for Animals, added: “Public opinion has clearly been asking the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to eradicate cruelty in the countryside, not regulate it. The measures proposed so far will not stop thousands of animals suffering and dying in snares and we are now seeking the support of the wider Parliament to look at this issue again.”
- ENDS -
Notes for Editors:
For interviews, further information or photographs, please contact:
Advocates for Animals – Libby Anderson (Political Director): 0131 2256039 or 07967839137.
League Against Cruel Sports - Louise Robertson (Scotland Campaigner): 01383 873461 or 07980 232287.
Snares are a primitive means of ‘pest’ control used on some farms and sporting estates in Scotland. Consisting of a thin wire noose, they are both cruel and indiscriminate traps. They are set to catch so-called pests such as foxes and rabbits but in reality any animal is at risk from getting caught in a snare, including protected animals such as badgers, otters and mountain hares, other wild animals such as deer, farmed animals such as sheep, and domestic cats and dogs. Although designed to immobilise their targets, snares can inflict horrendous injury and in many cases cause a painful and lingering death.