Badger dies overnight in snare on shooting estate

In May, Protect the Wild was contacted by a member of the South Yorkshire Badger Group (SYBG), a small group dedicated to the welfare, conservation, study, monitoring and public awareness of badgers.

SYBG contacted us after being sent an email by a member of the public who had come across a badger caught in a snare on a shooting estate near Bawtry in South Yorkshire.

As can be seen from the video below (which was taken by the member of the public who wishes to remain anonymous), the badger was highly agitated and scared but still alive. Few people would know what actions to take when finding an animal the size of a badger caught in a snare, and even fewer have the training and experience to free them. Unsure what to do, they filmed the scene on their phone, planning to send the video on to a local badger group, which they hoped would be able to help.

As soon as the video was received, Graham from SYBG went straight to the spot. It was just a day later, but the badger was already dead, a back leg still caught firmly in the snare which itself was ‘anchored’ (or fixed) to the ground.

As Graham explained to us, he found that this snare (and others nearby) had been laid flat. Snares are usually set ‘upright’ along animal runs, but where there is little vegetation to hide them, animal snares are sometimes laid flat on the ground to create a ‘trip snare’ where an animal’s foot or leg triggers the trap as it steps into the open loop. Leaving a snare with an open loop and anchored to the ground like the one that trapped this badger shows clear intent – perhaps not to snare a badger (which is illegal) but certainly to trap an animal like a fox.

Graham also told us that the snare was located near a stink pit. Stink pits are constructed by gamekeepers. They are pits or piles of dumped rotting mammal and bird carcasses which literally ‘stink’ and are used as bait to lure animals, most typically foxes. They are typically ringed with snares. While (currently) legal (provided that no livestock have been dumped into them), it’s worth noting that dogs may also be lured by the carcasses: walkers near shooting estates in woodlands or on moorland should know that their pets are therefore also at risk of being snared.

Graham photographed the corpse and the snare and contacted South Yorkshire Police. When he didn’t hear anything back from them (and as of writing he still hasn’t), he wrote to Oliver Coppard, the Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire (PCC functions were transferred in May 2024 to a new South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority).

Badgers, Snaring, and the Law

It would be all too easy to criticise the member of the public who found the badger, but we think that would be very unfair.

Yes, it would have been better if they had contacted the police (or SYBG) immediately, but as we’ve already said, the vast majority of the public wouldn’t know what to do in the same situation.

For a start, badgers have been so demonised by the badger cull (around 250,000 killed already) that they can appear to occupy a legal ‘grey’ area. They are in fact fully protected, but it’s little wonder that the public is sometimes confused about their legal status. They also have a reputation for being strong and ‘fierce’: it’s a safe assumption that most people wouldn’t want to (and shouldn’t) get close enough to an angry badger to try and untangle one from a snare! It’s also understandable that – if you don’t know any better – you might assume that, as snares are not banned and shooting estates are widely known to legally trap ‘pests’, then an estate may well be permitted to use a snare to trap a badger. Even if they weren’t, if a badger was accidentally trapped then perhaps a crime has not been committed?

Under those circumstances, contacting a badger group – who would know the law and would in theory might know how to free a badger from a snare – makes sense.

While badgers are in fact fully covered by law, snares are not. The ‘rules’ on snares themselves are part of a protocol written partly by the Gamekeepers’ own organisation! While the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006 place legal restrictions on snare use and what species can be caught, it is still a non-statutory Code of Practice (CoP) which provides the detailed guidance on their legal use. However, the CoP makes it clear that responsibility rests with the snare operator (the person that lays the snare), not with the employer, supplier, snare manufacturer or any advisor. It is the operator that is open to prosecution for malpractice.

For clarity, and as detailed in our Protectors of the Wild pages:

• Badgers are fully protected by law. It is illegal to catch/trap a badger in a snare (or any form of trap without a licence from Natural England).
• The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence “to set in position any trap or snare which is intended to cause bodily injury to any wild animal or to use a trap or snare for the purpose of killing such a wild animal included in Schedule 6 of the 1981 Act” – ie so-called ‘non-target’ protected species including Badger, Otter, Red Squirrel, Hedgehog, Pine Marten and Polecat.
• Snares are supposed to be what the industry calls ‘restraint devices’. Animals are meant to be held and subsequently killed by the operator, not die in them. Section 11B of the Wildlife and Countryside Act is clear that the operator must inspect every snare they place at least once a day, check whether an animal has been caught, and check that the snare is free-running (relaxes when the animal caught in it stops pulling).
• An operator who finds an animal caught by the snare “must, during the course of the inspection, release or remove the animal (whether it is alive or dead)”.
• The Animal Welfare Act 2006 applies to all use of traps and snares. This Act makes the operator responsible for avoiding the unnecessary suffering of any animal that has been captured (or ‘protected’ once it is under the control of the snare operator).
• Convicting someone is very hard, though, as in England, snare operators are not explicitly required to put their names on the snares they use or even register them with the authorities.
• On a side note, as much as we loathe snares, if we do find an animal in one it’s important to remember that in some cases (if used for trapping foxes, for example), snares are legal in England and damaging a legally set snare is actually unlawful.

Has a crime been committed in this case?

It is, of course, the courts that decide whether a crime has been committed, not an organisation like Protect the Wild.

However, in this case, a snare has been laid and it has illegally trapped a badger. It’s not possible to prove ‘intention’ (the operator of this snare could claim they had no way of knowing a badger might be caught), but the badger was still trapped the day after the snare was originally filmed, meaning that the snare operator either hadn’t checked the snare ‘once a day’ as required, or had checked but failed to release a ‘non target’ species as required. The badger clearly suffered unnecessarily as a result of being trapped for a prolonged period, a potential breach of the Animal Welfare Act. As the Code of Practice makes clear, in all instances the snare operator is responsible in law for the snare so would be liable in this instance.

In our opinion (and opinion is all it is) a wildlife crime has in all likelihood been committed by the snare operator. Having said that, under current legislation, proving beyond reasonable doubt who that operator was is extremely difficult without the cooperation of the estate – and there are no cases of estates ‘turning in’ their employees.

What should we do if we find a badger in a snare?

To be absolutely clear, if we find a badger caught in a snare a potential crime is taking place or has been committed.

The location is a potential wildlife crime scene and we should photograph what we find and report it to BOTH the Police (call 999 if the crime is still in progress, and ask to speak to someone with wildlife crime training) AND a local badger group who will take action as soon as they can (remember that most members are volunteers, so may not be able to ‘spring into action’ as quickly as we might like)..

• Any live animal we find in a snare will be frightened. If we approach them, they will try to escape (possibly causing more injury to themselves) or attack us (potentially causing injury to us) – that’s especially important to remember if we come across a badger in a snare. Badgers are very strong with powerful jaws, and are unused to being handled. They may bite so unless very experienced with handling badgers, the advice is NOT to try to release the animal yourself.

The blame lies with the estate and with MPs

Whether or not the member of the public should or could have responded more quickly is not the point here. They are not at fault. It is the shooting estate that is to blame – or at least (as no doubt the estate would claim) the employee who laid the snare on their behalf is to blame. Whoever laid the snare trapped a badger. The snare was not checked properly, and the badger was not released.

The blame also lies squarely with the MPs who refused to implement a snare ban in England the last time the issue was debated and have ruled out making operators in England register snares or label them, thus allowing issues around proving culpability to continue. On 09 January 2023 MPs gathered in a room in Westminster Hall to debate e-petition 600593, which as the 102,617 people who signed it will remember was a demand by Animal Aid that “The Government should prohibit the sale, use and manufacture of free-running snares under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, putting them in the same category as self-locking snares, which are already illegal.”

As we wrote in ‘Banning Snares: a parliamentary debate in name only’, after attending that ‘debate’:

“…every argument to ban snares was eloquently, accurately, and forcibly presented, but the government were never going to act. They were always going to stall and prevaricate and maintain the status quo on behalf of agriculture and shooting. Much like the parliamentary debate on ‘trail hunting’ in April 2022, they were always going to say that current protections were strong enough, that it was somehow vital to the countryside to continue, and then toss us a bone by saying they would discuss it more. At some point. Not now, but soon. Probably.”

Snares are barbaric and banned in most countries in Europe – including Scotland and Wales. They are indiscriminate by nature and can and do trap a wide range of animals, including protected species like badgers and even dogs and cats. An operator of a snare can still claim a lack of intention or that they couldn’t know what animal might ‘accidentally’ be caught in it.

Snaring supporters in England try to sell the idea that all a snare does is hold an animal for a short period until the operator comes to – typically – put a bullet in the animal’s head. They have rebranded them as ‘restraint devices’. It’s nonsense, and almost suggests that an animal – whether a predator or prey species – would sit impassively out in the open while ‘restrained’ in a snare. Animals experience pain and fear. They behave like the badger in the video above, frantically trying to get to safety. That alone should be enough to have them banned, but snares are cheap to make, easy to use, light to carry, and quickly replaced if lost, so the shooting industry keeps demanding they remain legal.

This awful incident could not have taken place if MPs weren’t so in thrall to the shooting industry and its obsession with what it labels ‘pests and vermin’.

• Snares are cruel, indiscriminate tools that most other governments have already banned. A ban on snaring in England – which was promised by the Labour government – MUST be expedited urgently.