As the Scottish Government prepares to report on its review on animal snaring and wildlife crime, Rory Cahill looks at the issues under inspection
A thin loop of wire lies almost invisible in the undergrowth where it has been carefully placed by an experienced operator. After many hours of lying dormant, a fox noses through the undergrowth, unaware of the presence of the snare.
Stepping into the loop, a simple mechanism is triggered and the fox is trapped in the loop, doomed to wait until the person – almost certainly a gamekeeper on a shooting estate – who set the snare returns to end the fox’s life.
But what does the snaring, and killing of the fox represent? is it a hideous and indefensible cruelty to a wild animal, or is it part and parcel of country life - a necessity that city dwellers, who are easily swayed by cutesy images of fluffy fox cubs, do not understand?
The debate over snaring – and this is a debate with very little middle
ground – represents one of the key fronts in the ongoing dispute over
what protection should be afforded to our nation’s wildlife. With
Environment Minister Michael Russell having been a voluble supporter of
tackling wildlife crime, and a ‘thematic review’ – led by her Majesty’s
Chief Inspector of Constabulary Paddy Tomkins and her Majesty’s Chief
inspector of Prosecution, Joe O’Donnell - of the way in which wildlife
crime laws in Scotland are framed and enforced under way, those opposed
to snaring are quietly confident the practice will be banned this year,
following an announcement by Russell next month.
But those who are employing the snares, quite legally at the moment,
argue that they, more than anyone, have the biggest investment in
ensuring Scotland has a healthy and well-balanced environment, and
point out that the sporting estates that set most of the snares – to
protect game birds like grouse from predation by foxes – are a vital
cog in the Scottish economy.
So what are the facts? Advocates for Animals, a long-time opponent
of snaring, has launched a new campaign calling for the banning of the
practice on the theme that ‘hanging is still legal in Scotland.’ On the
website accompanying the campaign, www.bansnares.com the group points
out that: “Snares are cruel. Although their purpose is to immobilise
predators, snares have the potential to cause extreme suffering to
animals and in some cases a painful, lingering death through
disembowelment, decapitation or even losing a limb
Snares are cruel. Although their purpose is to immobilise
predators, snares have the potential to cause extreme suffering to
animals and in some cases a painful, lingering death through
disembowelment, decapitation or even losing a limb 
.
“Snares are unselective. in reality any animal is at risk from a snare including protected species such as otters and badgers as well as deer, hares, livestock and even domestic cats and dogs.”
But, counters the shooting industry, snaring is a vital tool in keeping the sector healthy and vibrant, and they point to impressive economic statistics to bolster their case.
Shooting parties are worth £240m to the Scottish economy, employing 58,000 people in the equivalent of 11,000 fulltime jobs. the 8,800 shoot providers in Scotland generate approximately 1.75 million visitor nights, most of which take place in autumn and winter, traditionally the ‘off-season’ for tourism in Scotland.
Indeed, argue some in the shooting industry, not only is snaring vital for protecting the game birds that provide the basis for the shooting industry, but it also plays a key role in ensuring the very wildlife populations it is set against are healthy and stable.
“Snaring is not only an important tool in protecting wildlife from predation, it also benefits, perhaps illogically, fox populations. Foxes are prone to disease like mange when they live in close proximity to one another and also competition for resources is much higher in dense populations. in managed populations, there is less competition and so consequently, each individual, all things being equal, receives a greater share,” says James Scott of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation.
Scott acknowledges that the shooting industry has historical ‘form’ when it comes to the maltreatment of wildlife, but insists that times have changed.
“Unfortunately, shooting interests are not entirely blameless, certainly from a historical perspective. Attitudes are certainly very different now and this has been backed up by robust policies of expulsion from membership upon conviction for wildlife crime from organisations such as BASC Scotland. i do feel that there is very often a tendency to blame shooting interests without any basis in fact and this only serves to undermine the relationship between the police and the shooting community. the shooting community has a lot to offer in the fight against wildlife crime, so building this relationship is vital.
“The shooting community has moved out of the dark Victorian age when all they wanted was game – we are very much aware of the conservation benefits of the management that we conduct, the feeding we provide and the habitat work that is carried out. Remember that shooting in Scotland provides about three times as many conservation jobs as Scottish Natural Heritage. We also know the economic benefit of shooting to Scotland – some £240m per annum, often in areas with low employment and at times of the year when income can be scarce. there is a tendency to focus on the negatives as perhaps more newsworthy than the positives,” he says.
But for groups like Advocates for Animals, snares will never be anything but cruel and unselective killers – the landmines of the animal kingdom. Libby Anderson of Advocates asks why it is that we consider some animals as 'deserving’ of the kind of brutal treatment we would never countenance for other creatures.
“Wild animals have exactly the same capacity for suffering as domestic and farmed animals. the only difference is that there is a culture of designating some wild animals as vermin because they impact on the interests of some people. Even so, it would not be legal in this country - or even countenanced - to kill a domestic animal by poisoning or slow strangulation and any lethal control of wild animals, if it can be justified, should start from that basis. the current differentiation between species creates a basic inequity which has no animal welfare or scientific basis,” she says.
The dispute over snaring provides an elegant snapshot of the dilemma facing Russell in regards to the debate over wildlife crime, and what to do about it. Russell makes clear – perhaps bearing in mind the protests against Labour governments on both sides of the Border when they banned fox hunting with dogs – that he does not sit on either side of the debate.
“I strongly support the game industry but unless we have a healthy environment, then we’ll have nothing. What society wants more than anything else is a good place to live. We are all victims of wildlife crime in that it threatens to diminish the rich natural heritage for which Scotland is rightly world-famous and which is of great importance to our economy,” he says.
Russell points out that wildlife crime, in practice, can involve actions as varied as setting dogs onto badgers and hares for sport (often accompanied by gambling), stealing the eggs of rare birds for collecting purposes, the import or export of rare species for the pet trade, and the destruction of species like seals and large birds of prey by those working in industries where the predators are seen as pests or outright competition. It is here that Anderson’s point about which species are seen as ‘more deserving’ of protection is brought into focus.
Every country has its peculiar, and often irrational, favourites in the animal kingdom, something that is reflected in its attitudes to wildlife crime. in Australia, if a shark attacks and eats a human being, instead of the shark being killed, people are banned from entering the water where it is lurking. Anyone killing or harassing the shark faces jail. Similarly, the Australian government has currently dispatched its navy, at a cost of millions, to observe Japan’s contentious ‘scientific whaling’ mission in the Southern Ocean due to public disgust at what it sees as commercial whaling by the Japanese, a decision that has outraged the Japanese, who point to Australia’s habit of culling kangaroos for meat and their fur and ask what makes whales more worthy of protection than the kangaroos.
In Scotland, our totemic animals are the large birds of prey, like eagles. the discovery of the body of a golden eagle that had been poisoned in Peeblesshire in August last year was, literally, front-page news. So why do we consider the killing of large birds to be worse – or at least more newsworthy – than other wildlife crime?
Duncan Orr-Ewing of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says there are two reasons, one quite practical and one more esoteric:
“Crimes against birds are most easily recorded and the fact is that crimes against raptors do resonate with people.”
As with snaring, it is gamekeepers on sporting estates, who see the raptors as a threat to game birds, that Orr Ewing says are most responsible for the poisoning and shooting of large raptors, like hen harriers, eagles and buzzards.
“Twenty years of statistical evidence doesn’t lie,” he says.
But Orr-Ewing is keen to point out that not all gamekeepers are criminals, and stresses that the vast majority of estates and gamekeepers are very progressive in the way they deal with land management issues.
“I work with a number of sporting estates on issues like regenerating capercaillie and black grouse populations and on some estates they are working quite hard to help with re-introduction of red kites. But sadly, there are many people out there who are killing raptors illegally.”
The very nature of crimes against large raptors makes it difficult to prosecute. Orr-Ewing points to figures collated by the RSPB showing that between 2001 and 2006, there were more than 850 recorded incidents of raptor persecution, but only 12 convictions.
“A lot of this crime takes place in very remote areas and requires corroboration, which can be difficult to attain,” he says. this is a theme echoed by Alan Stewart, wildlife crime officer at tayside Police, and the acknowledged pioneer of wildlife policing in Scotland. Even when police or investigators are certain that an individual is poisoning birds, gathering the necessary evidence for a conviction can be extremely difficult.
“When we started up here in tayside in 1993, there was a problem with one estate, where there was a real determined effort to kill as many birds of prey as possible, and this went on for over a decade. it was very difficult to prove that who we thought was doing it was actually doing it. Even when we found baits and dead birds in his pheasant roosting pens, we still couldn’t discount, because as you know, we need to prove things beyond reasonable doubt that someone was coming in from off the estate and setting the baits, as unlikely as that seemed.
“There’s been another case on an estate recently where there was a report of a white-tailed eagle being killed, and we haven’t been able to find a body, but it has just disappeared, even though it has been radio-tagged. But without the body, we can never have substantiation,” he says.
For Louise Robertson of the League Against Cruel Sports, paradoxically, the attention given to a single instance of wildlife crime, like the poisoning of the golden eagle in Peeblesshire, demonstrates that wildlife crime now has a firm place in the public consciousness.
“The illegal killing of the golden eagle in August, as sickening as it was, has actually been a turning point for wildlife crime in Scotland. What it has done is make wildlife crime much more of a mainstream issue, which can only be a good thing
The illegal killing of the golden eagle in August, as sickening as it was, has actually been a turning point for wildlife crime in Scotland. What it has done is make wildlife crime much more of a mainstream issue, which can only be a good thing
. People have to be aware that these types of crimes are being committed and we have a duty to ensure that those who commit crimes against wildlife are brought to justice,” she says.
So what is the way forward? Russell has signalled that the Government intends to take a far tougher line with those engaging in wildlife crime, including the withdrawal of firearms licenses and the halting of government grants. Earlier this month, landowner James McDougal lost £7,919 in single farm payments and beef calf payments after a gamekeeper operating on his land, George Aitken, was convicted of setting traps and poison baits to kill birds of prey on the Blythe Farm estate in Berwickshire. Although this is the first example of such penalties being used, it is unlikely to be the last.
Orr-Ewing says the thematic review being conducted could make some very simple recommendations that would help police identify those persecuting wildlife – raptors in particular - and give procurators- fiscal a far better chance of successfully prosecuting.
“There needs to be wildlife crime officers in all eight forces. Northern Constabulary has no dedicated wildlife crime officers, and that is the area where much of this crime is going on. the laws we have are pretty good but things need to be tightened up around the edges.
“The tactics of the criminals keep changing and we need to respond to that. For example, a number of poisons were banned under the original legislation, but of course, those who are persecuting birds have just switched to using different poisons. We need to ban those poisons too now,” he says.
Advances in technology will also play a role. A Strathclyde University conference on wildlife crime in December heard repeated calls for the greater use of DnA and forensic techniques to assist in prosecutions, a move backed by Tayside Police Assistant Chief Constable Iain McLeod.
“A lot of wildlife crime takes place very much in remote areas. Forensic techniques have moved on significantly in the last five to ten years and we need to make sure we take every opportunity to use them here to try and increase the number of prosecutions and combat this type of crime,” says McLeod.
But most encouragingly, any well-intentioned changes Russell’s review recommends may just be the icing on the cake. Allan Stewart at Tayside Police, with his decades of experience, probably knows more about wildlife crime than anyone else in the country. he suggests that years of education, coupled with enforcement, and growing public awareness of the nature and impact of the crime, means that wildlife crime may simply die out of its own accord, as those perpetrating the crimes either realise doing so is counter-productive, or are deterred by more vigilant policing and heavier punishments.
“I do suspect it will pass. there’s a good number of landowners and gamekeepers who know now that it is just unacceptable, not on.”
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