The Use of Snares in Wales

Prior to the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023, the use of snares was widespread and as many as 51,000 fox snares were active in Wales at any one time. The use of fox snares in Wales was subject to legal restrictions, principally through the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Animal Welfare Act 2006 and Deer Act 1991. Using self-locking snares which tighten with a ratchet-like mechanism is illegal as is the use of snares to catch certain protected animals like badgers and otters.

The Welsh Government had introduced a code of best practice on the use of snares in fox control and users of legal free-running snares must take all reasonable precautions to prevent them catching or causing injury to protected animals like badgers, and to check set snares at least once per day. However, while the Code sought to raise awareness and understanding of the law concerning snaring, what had become clear was often a lack of compliance with the 2015 Code, raising questions over its efficacy and raising public interest in an outright ban on the cruel and indiscriminate practice. RSPCA Cymru has sat on a Welsh Government Working Group, which was established following a 2017 Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee report into snaring; and we feel has proven a key forum in highlighting a lack of adherence with the Code and the need for an outright ban.

Snares are cruel and indiscriminate in what they catch and the RSPCA supports an outright ban on their use in Wales. Animals caught in snares can suffer a slow and agonising death due to injury.

After years of campaigning, RSPCA Cymru welcomed the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023; which came into effect on the 17th of October 2023, bringing into force a ban on the use of snares and gluetraps in Wales.