The victims

Ruth Adam from Dollar, Clackmannanshire shares her story of when her dogs, Stovie and Bazil, became snared:

 "My two dogs chased a rabbit through the hedge by the road and into this scrub, but my staffie-cross, Stovie, appeared back on her own. Puzzled by her abnormal behaviour, I followed her into the field and through the densely overgrown scrub of rhododendrons and hawthorn, to find my other dog, Bazil, with a noose round his neck. The wire had been placed at the entrance to a burrow, from which the rabbit had managed to escape, but poor Bazil had not. It was fortunate that he didn't panic, but lay still until his canine friend led us to him. If she hadn''t, it could have been a very long time before we located him, and possibly too late.

A few weeks later, in the same area, my dogs were running by the verge on the virtually unused single track road when I heard Stovie yelp. She had gone through the hedge but, luckily, I could locate her quickly because she was whining. A noose, which I can only assume was meant to catch a fox because it was too big for rabbits, was tight round her neck. She must have run into it with some force, because I had difficulty pulling it off and for the following week her eyes were distinctly bloodshot."

Heather from Biggar has experienced the true horror and the misuse of snares:

“When I moved house in 1985 I had three cats. Over the first year two of them, Jemima and Socrates, disappeared - I left no stone unturned trying to find them. Aged 7 and 6, they were home loving cats and had never gone off before. During my searches local people told me that one of my neighbours hated cats. Then the third, Squirrel, also disappeared and turned up dead at the side of the road. I had a post mortem done, and she had been caught in a snare and then hit over the head with a hammer - she had been dumped at the roadside to make it look like a road traffic accident. On confronting the neighbour, he gloated that he had also caught the other two. I tried to get him charged but there was no evidence."

Border Terrier Bhen had a lucky escape from a snare:

“I was walking my two dogs, Mae and Bhen, in East Lothian. Bhen went off (as he does) and vanished. After nearly an hour of searching the wood I eventually found him trapped with a snare round his neck. He didn’t make a sound, even when he saw me. Fortunately he is a tough little Border Terrier and wasn’t seriously injured.

Supporter Lyn Flanders believes she lost her treasured cat, Skippy, to a snare:

“My own experience happened in 1996 - we had given up our beautiful home in Newport-on-Tay to move to an isolated cottage on Montreathmont Moor for the sake of our own cats, and also to offer a home to five feral cats from Dundee Cat Shelter. For the ferals we had a huge run built around a pine tree, with a heated shed for their comfort. I was able to get close to one of them, Skippy, who was a very beautiful, big, half black half white cat who learned to trust me, and I took the decision to release him after a few months. He always appeared when called, but one day, after a few times out with the enclosure, he did not return and we went off searching for him. We searched for days on end without success.

Fairly nearby to where Skippy went missing I found a snare in the woods - it was empty, but I am more than sure this was the fate that awaited this dear cat. I have no proof whatsoever, but I know this cat would have returned to us if he could."

Skopi''s near-death experience:

"Our cat, Skopi, was caught in a snare set by a neighbour in his large garden. He’d set it to snare rabbits. Skopi was missing for about 18 hours so the snare hadn’t been checked regularly. When out searching for him, I heard a faint miaow and went into the top end of the garden and found him caught by his neck and lying over a roll of barbed wire. I managed with difficulty to release him and, after carrying him home and letting him rest because he was in shock, I took him to the vet who said that he had survived thanks only his thick fur, and the fact that he had, however painful, the roll of barbed wire to support his weight.

We were both shocked by the experience and realised that our cat was probably not the only pet to whom this had happened, and how awful it must be for wild animals who may lie in agony for days."

A couple from Whitekirk, East Lothian, relive the frightful days their dogs, Jess and Molly, got trapped in snares:

"We recently had a personal experience (not the first time) of our Labrador dog, Molly, being caught by the nose in such a device, not 20 yards from a public path. Her state when I reached her, within a few minutes, was pitiful. It appalled me to discover that the snare was not a "locking" snare and therefore it was legal. In reality it does lock (otherwise it wouldn''t achieve its ghastly purpose) but it is said that it does not "tighten".

On another occasion our other dog, Jess, left the path to go off into the undergrowth (trees, brooms and rhododendrons). I heard her yelp and fortunately managed to find her fairly quickly - she had a snare round her neck which was tightening as she struggled. Had we not heard her single yelp, I don''t know if we''d have found her. Having seen the snare first hand, it's easy to imagine the terror and pain an animal will suffer before dying one way or another."

Jill Flye from West Lothian wants to see an immediate ban on snares after witnessing first hand how cruel and indiscriminate they are:

“I was walking with my dog Monty, an English Pointer, and Springer Spaniel puppy, Meg, along the canal towpath. My dogs were off the lead and running in and out of the woods close to the path. They are well behaved off-lead and will run back to me every minute or two, or whenever I call them. Then Monty ran into the woods, I heard him cry out in pain, and only Meg ran back. Monty didn’t come back when I called him, so I started frantically searching the woods. I found him in just a few minutes, because he was howling intermittently. He had his right foreleg caught in a snare and was pulling it tighter as he struggled to get free. The snare came free quite easily once I held Monty still, but in that very short time it had caused his leg to swell up around the wire, and had taken the skin off where it had caught him. Monty was clearly in great pain and distress, although luckily he had not been trapped for long enough to cause any serious or lasting damage."

Don Cook, co-ordinator of Stranraer & District Cats Protection League, recalls a snaring incident in his local area:

"About four years ago I was called to a lady''s house about 3 miles from where I live. She had been feeding a feral cat on a regular basis, and this particular day the cat had turned up with a snare around its front leg. I caught the cat and took it to the vets in Newton Stewart. Luckily for the cat the leg was only grazed and did not need any treatment."

Thankfully there was a happy ending in store for Spats and Mrs Nancy Forsyth from the Black Isle:

“Our house is below an old railway line which is a favourite walk for people and their pets. One day a neighbour came home with our cat Spat, who had a snare around her neck. I got the snare off and laid Spats beside the fire, dipped cotton wool into warm milk and squeezed it into her mouth, and continued to do this every few hours throughout the night. She recovered and lived for years after that.”

Anne, from Bishopbriggs, Glasgow, managed to rescue Clover from a snare, just in the nick of time:

“I heard a terrible screeching from my kitchen and went to find Clover hanging from the window, the wire snare tight around her middle. She had obviously managed to uproot the wooden stake to which it had been attached and had come home trailing it behind her. She had jumped up onto the bench below the kitchen window, which was opened a few inches, onto the sill and in through the window. However, the stake was too wide to fit through the gap and wedged outside the window frame. She had jumped down from the inner sill towards the kitchen floor but the wire was only about 18 inches long and so she was left hanging, fortunately not by her neck.

I am sure she would have died if I had not been in the house. I was able to release her right away but the wire had cut into her skin and she must have been in terrible pain. She recovered fully, but if the snare had been around her neck it might have been a different story.”

Tasha Martin''s cat was lucky to survive the terrible injuries from a snare:

“Our cat had been missing for ten days. We were heartbroken, and just when we were about to give up hope of ever seeing her again, she came back. After a few minutes of her arrival we noticed something very disturbing - she had a piece of wire wrapped right around her body: it had cut into her skin and she was in desperate pain. We immediately took her to the vets where she was given 50 stitches: the wire had cut through her flesh. At that time, four other cats in my neighbourhood had gone missing, and I am now convinced they were victims of snares. They are barbaric devices. "

A supporter''s heart-breaking account of how she lost her beloved cat, Tigger, to a deadly snare:

“A few years ago my cat Tigger went missing for nearly a week and, despite desperate attempts to find her, she did not return. On the 7th day, a Sunday morning, one of my neighbours phoned to say that she thought that my cat was caught in her fence. I ran along and, sure enough, it was Tigger, hanging upside down, caught by her hind quarters. We were unable to see how she was caught, but my neighbour''s husband got some wire cutters and managed to free her. From her hips back her body was rock hard: she made no attempt to move, only this heart rending miaow that was hardly audible. I immediately telephoned the vet who arranged to meet me in his surgery. He laid Tigger on his table and after a few minutes sunk his finger through her fur and, using some cutters, snipped the wire that was constricting her. At that moment, Tigger died. Tigger had been caught up in the snare for days and, as it was at the bottom of the garden inside a hedge, nobody had heard her cries for help."