Chamber and committees

You have already asked that question and I have said that I do not have that granular level of detail. If we have such detail or can find it, you have my assurance that I will write to the committee with it.

If they are used in accordance with the 1981 act, which dictates how they can be used, then yes.

We have established that I do not have that granular detail, but Hugh Dignon might want to add something.

Most immediately, you will know that a consultation was launched. I believe that the consultation results have been shared with the committee. There has been a long lead-up to this from the point of view of evidence gathering. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 requires there to be a statutory review of snaring every five years. We have set up a statutory review group, and the Scottish Government is working with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Police Scotland, NatureScot and Science & Advice for Scottish Agriculture. We will be looking at snaring on a regular basis, as I have outlined.

We also requested that the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission conduct a review of the welfare implications of snaring. I know that SAWC has given evidence to the committee. I do not know whether it has given you any evidence so far on snaring, but I have here some of the conclusions and recommendations from its report. It talks about the sentience of animals and the capacity of animals to experience pain and other negative impacts from snaring, including psychological impacts. It said that non-target species, including some protected species, were routinely caught in snares, and suffer and may die. Animals go through not only the physical impact of the snare but the psychological distress, particularly when they are left for many hours caught in a snare, where they could be exposed to other predator attacks and are out in an exposed area and subject to the weather. They do not have access to food, they could be away from their young or they could be young animals that are away from their mother. There are all those impacts, too.

SAWC concluded that snares cause significant welfare harms to members of target and non-target species and recommended that the sale of snares and their use by the public and industry be banned in Scotland on animal welfare grounds. We are not proposing to ban the sale of snares but we propose to ban their use.

Convener, with the greatest respect, are you saying that we should have put obligations on land managers to report how many foxes they shoot as a result of using snares? We did not do that.

I will talk about the evidence that meant that we felt that we had to do something. I think that I mentioned that in the previous evidence session.

The issue was brought to my attention in the previous parliamentary session, when we were considering what became the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020. The SSPCA said that it could attend a situation in which a live animal was caught in an illegally set trap, deal with that situation and report it to the procurator fiscal or the police but that, despite the fact that it could see more illegally set traps that had dead animals or no animals in them, it could not take those traps as evidence and report them to the police. Basically, if the animal in the trap was alive, it was within the SSPCA’s powers to act, but, if the animal was already dead, it could not do anything.

The SSPCA could be called to such situations ahead of the police being able to get there. So, in effect, it had the potential to present evidence for a case to be made in order to assist the police and the procurator fiscal but, given its powers, it could not act. We looked at this issue over the summer and we have spoken to a lot of stakeholders, including the police and the SSPCA.

The SSPCA will be able to—let me get this right—use the powers to

“search for, search or examine things if they suspect with reasonable cause that evidence will be found in or on that thing”

and

“seize and detain potential evidence or things”

that provide evidence of the participation in or commission of a relevant offence. Relevant offences are offences that are set out in part 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 or, in this case, in the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill. The Scottish SPCA can use those powers only in situations on land or non-domestic property in which it is already responding to a case under its existing powers under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. Therefore, the SSPCA cannot go looking for things. If it is already responding to a case, it will be able to seize evidence and give it to the police as soon as possible. It will then be up to the police and the procurator fiscal’s office to decide whether what has been done constitutes a crime.

Yes, I absolutely do. In about 2019, when we were taking evidence on the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Bill, the limitation on the SSPCA’s ability to gather evidence was put to us. I was struck by the fact that, when the SSPCA could see evidence of wildlife crime having happened, it had to walk away from that and could not do anything about it.

There is also the potential for evidence to be compromised over a period of time. An SSPCA inspector might phone the police and say that they have seen something but they cannot do anything with it, so the police will need to get there. As you know, however, that allows time for the evidence to be removed or compromised by the weather. Ms Forbes said that her favourite subject is enforcement. One of the reasons why wildlife crime is still such a scourge in rural Scotland is the difficulty in gathering evidence on it.

It is a matter of plugging the gap. The SSPCA will be called in anyway if someone phones because a live animal has been caught in a trap. Under the proposed new powers, SSPCA inspectors will be able to seize evidence of suspected other wildlife crime in the area involving animals that have perished or other traps that have been illegally laid, and they can help the police to get wildlife crime prosecuted.

I was not expecting questions about muirburn.

As I have written to the committee to say, we are proposing an amendment that includes a ban on snares, and we would include the other devices that you referenced in that. As far as we are concerned, the definition of snares includes what are called humane cable restraints. However, I must caveat that because, in order to be fair to the people who would like us to have a licensing scheme for the use of snares in certain circumstances, I have given them an assurance that I would consider their proposals for a licensing scheme. I got their proposals on Monday night and I will take time to look at them.

As it stands, though, we wrote to the committee to say that we would ban the use of snares because we have not been convinced so far that snares, even with modifications such as dual swivels, larger loops and breakaway joints, do not have significant animal welfare implications. Animals caught in such restraints might not exhibit the same physical damage as you would see from a more traditional snare, but, as I have said before, they are trapped for hours; they are still caught by the neck, although not as tightly as they would be with a traditional snare; they are stressed and exhausted; they cannot access food and water over that time; they could be subject to extreme weather; they could be subject to other predator attacks; the psychological distress that they undergo will have shock implications for them; and they will suffer over that period of time. That is why we have made the recommendation to ban snares.

The issue is about the welfare considerations for animals caught in these snares, whether they are target species or not—many non-target species are caught in snares, and they would be caught in any type of snare, whether it was a humane cable restraint with swivels or whatever. With the best will in the world, even the most professional and diligent operator of those snares may not be present within an hour or so of that happening, because the snares are set over a large piece of land, so it could be many hours until they are able to release an animal that is a member of a non-target species or humanely dispose of an animal that is a target species.

Those are not just my views. The DEFRA study that was carried out in 2010 made reference to those snares as well. It demonstrated that a lot of the non-target species—the larger species such as badgers—were not able to break away from those humane cable restraints. Under the agreement on international humane trapping standards, which sets out criteria for rating traps by species and method of use, restraining traps such as snares are rated according to injuries that are indicative of poor welfare—that includes any type of snare. That is what I keep coming back to.

As I said, I gave my assurance that I would look at the proposals that Scottish Land & Estates put forward for a licence scheme, and it was only on Monday night that those proposals came through. However, as it stands, we are aiming to ban the use of snares, including the ones that are for sale with the modifications that I have outlined.

A great deal of work is being done, Ms Hamilton, to allow stakeholders the opportunity to advocate for a particular type of snare still being used in a licensed way. It is my job to listen to everyone and to make a balanced decision on the basis of interaction with all stakeholders. That is what my officials and I have been doing over the summer. I appreciate that it has put your scrutiny back, but instead of having everything in the bill from the get-go and setting out our stall by saying, “We’re going to ban snares,” we have said to stakeholders who have been advocating for humane cable restraints that we would look at that and do all the work that you have suggested. That is what we have done.