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Image: Eurasian badger (Meles meles).
Home » Eurasian badger (Meles meles) » Articles :
Article 1: About snaring
Information about snares and the terrible suffering caused to badgers by these indiscriminate killers.
See also: Article 2: Case studies
On this page:
Introduction | A closer look at snares | The fate of a snared animal | Related Badger Pages
Snares are frequently used in Britain as a means of killing foxes or rabbits. They are usually placed over the entrances or rabbit burrows or fox earths, or along runs or pathways thought to be used by the target species. Snares are indiscriminate killers however, and account for the deaths of many other animals, including cats, dogs, deer, otters - and badgers.
Snares may also be deliberately set for badgers, here in Britain and in other countries, by those who see them as pests and wish to kill them, or by those who wish to capture them for their pelts. The problem with these devices is that they are a barbaric means of killing animals, causing horrific injuries and terrible - often prolonged - suffering.
[Image]
A snare set at a gap under a fence.
A snare is basically a wire noose, one end of which is attached to a stake, fence post or other object which acts as an anchor. Snares come in three basic types: free-running, self-locking, and dual-purpose. When an animal is caught in a free-running snare, the noose tightens as the animal pulls against it, but slackens when the animal relaxes. With a self-locking snare however, the noose, once tightened, stays that way.
Dual-purpose snares, as the name suggests, can be set as either free-running or self-locking. A dual-purpose snare consists of a small metal bracket with three holes, and of course a length of wire. One end of the wire is anchored through the first hole of the bracket, and a noose is then formed with the other end of the wire passing through one of the other two holes in the bracket; this end is then attached to the stake, fence post or whatever. If the tail-end of the wire is passed through the middle hole of the bracket, it forms a free-running snare. If however it passes through the hole at the other end of the metal bracket, it forms a self-locking snare.
Although on the face of it free-running snares are more humane because they will slacken off, in practice it is easy for kinks to form in the wire of these snares, turning them into self-lockers.
Picture © Steve Clark, and used with his permission. See the Photo File .
[Image]
A badger caught in a snare.
Snared animals are usually caught by the neck, but they may also be trapped by a leg or round the body. Once caught, the snared animal will panic and struggle to free itself. The more the animal struggles, the tighter the noose becomes, and the tighter the noose, the greater the victim's stuggling and suffering becomes.
Animals caught in snares may die of strangulation, or they may weaken, stop struggling, and eventually die from their injuries or infection, or from starvation. Sometimes the struggling animal manages to pull the wire away from its anchor and escapes with the snare still wrapped around its body, only to die later from injury or infection.
There have been many horrific cases, in which badgers have been caught in nooses around the neck, leg, chest or abdomen and suffered appalling injuries. A snare caught around a badger's abdomen can be particularly nasty, closing to a diameter of just 10 centimetres and causing massive internal damage. Badgers so caught can survive, in terrible pain, for a considerable length of time before they die.
Picture © Steve Clark, and used with his permission. See the Photo File .
Find out about The threats faced by the Eurasian badger .
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