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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 07 February 2024

07 Feb 2024 · S6 · Rural Affairs and Islands Committee

Item of business

Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Martin, Gillian SNP Aberdeenshire East Watch on SPTV

My amendment 54 seeks to introduce a comprehensive ban on the use of snares, as is recommended by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission. The amendment introduces an offence of using a snare or setting one in position either to kill or to take any animal other than a wild bird. It will also be an offence to set a snare in a position where it is likely to cause bodily injury to any such animal coming into contact with it. My provisions set out two very important exceptions, which Colin Smyth is seeking to remove in his amendments, and I will speak to that issue in a moment. As I said in the stage 1 debate, I believe that the Parliament can no longer ignore the weight of evidence that snares lead to unacceptable levels of suffering, not just for wild animals but for domestic animals, which can become trapped in them. The decision to ban the use of snares has not been made lightly or quickly, and my decision takes into account the wealth of evidence and opinion that has been presented to the Parliament on the matter over the years. Unfortunately, even where snares are used in very strict accordance with the conditions set out in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, they remain indiscriminate by their nature and, as such, they pose an unacceptable risk to non-target species, including other wildlife, endangered species and domestic species such as cats. According to the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, it is estimated that between 21 and 69 per cent of animals caught in snares are non-target species. That is simply unacceptable. More humane methods of wildlife control such as shooting and trapping are available to land managers. Indeed, shooting foxes at night using lamps or thermal scopes remains the predominant method of fox control by a considerable margin. Moreover, alternatives such as live-capture traps are still available where, for example, the lack of a suitable backstop can mean that shooting is not appropriate in certain circumstances. 09:00 I recognise that control of predators is necessary to protect vulnerable species as well as livestock and agriculture and that land managers should be allowed to take action to effectively manage wildlife for those purposes. I am also aware that some people have claimed that the removal of snaring as an option might reduce the ability of land managers to protect ground-nesting species of bird, particularly curlew, lapwing and other wader species of serious conservation concern. However, I remain confident that there are sufficient alternative methods of predator control, which a number of landowners, managers and organisations already use. Those include the RSPB, which has policies to prohibit the use of snares and believes that it is still able to undertake sufficient predator control to protect vulnerable species. The same view was reached by the Welsh Parliament when it banned the use of snares in the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023, in recognition of poor animal welfare outcomes. I am confident that a ban on the use of snares would not prevent anyone from undertaking necessary wildlife management. In our public consultation on snaring, 70 per cent of respondents supported a complete ban on the use of all snares, including so-called humane cable restraints. It is clear that there is widespread support for that among the general public. Snares are already banned in many European countries, and land managers have adapted. We can learn from that and provide advice and information where that is helpful. Some have called for the ban on the continued use of humane cable restraints under a licensing regime for the purpose of killing and taking an animal. I have carefully considered that and the welfare impacts of such a scheme on target and non-target species, alongside the need to provide for effective predator control.

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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 07 February 2024

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