Terrified fox awaits its fate on shooting estate

The Mirror has joined forces with Green Britain Foundations to expose the cruel use of snare traps on the Duke of Westminster’s estate. Heartbreaking footage documented the moment a fox was trapped.

This terrified fox, its head caught in a snare, cowers as it awaits its fate on the shooting estate of the richest landowner in Britain.

An undercover investigation on the Cheshire estate of the Duke of Westminster has revealed questions about the controversial use of snare traps.

This one was set in apparent breach of best practice guidelines – though not illegal – and was placed at the entrance to a footbridge and close enough to a wooden post for the fox to become entangled.

Labour pledged to ban these snares in its manifesto and they are already banned in Wales – just three miles away from the Duke’s Eaton Hall estate – for causing “acute pain and suffering”.

The footage comes as the shooting season is in full swing and the Duke of Westminster’s famous private grouse shoots are amongst the most elite events in the calendar.

The 33-year-old Duke inherited the Grosvenor Estate, which includes Eaton Hall, in 2016 when he was just 26. With a fortune of £10.1 billion, he is a godson of King Charles III and Prince William was an usher at his wedding this summer.

The video was obtained by the Green Britain Foundations and its founder Dale Vince said: “The evidence is clear and deeply troubling – a fox appearing to suffer in a cruel snare on the Duke of Westminster’s own land. This barbaric practice needs to end now. I’m calling on the Duke to show true leadership by immediately instructing his staff to cease using snares across his estates”.

The activists who obtained the footage released the fox but said they had found many more snares in just one wood. A spokesperson for Grosvenor’s Eaton Estate said: “We use legal cable restraints in a limited capacity, as part of necessary conservation efforts to protect red-listed species, as is common practice across farmland and the countryside in England.
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“These devices are carefully designed to be non-lethal, to avoid unnecessary harm and to allow other animals to escape. Employees, who are highly trained in their use, regularly monitor the areas with cameras and conduct daily checks.”

Grosvenor did not comment on claims the snare – known as a humane cable restraint or HCR – appeared not be set in line with best practice industry guidelines. But a spokesperson for the National Gamekeepers Organisation told us: “The placement of the HCR does not appear to follow best practice as the wire is able to touch the wooden post, which is not ideal. However, it is legally set.”

Simon Wild of the National Anti-Snaring Campaign said: “HCRs are simply snares that have been renamed. They are supposed to have a weak link so larger animals like badgers and deer can break free. But we have proved by lab testing that they weak link is unbreakable. It requires 11 stone of force. We know from a Defra study in 2012 that all snares cause traumatic injury and are completely indiscriminate. They kill as many if not more non-target species than target species.”

Announcing the ban in Wales a year ago, the Welsh Government said: “Snares sometimes referred to as cable restraints, cause a great deal of suffering to animals and are indiscriminate as they can harm species they are not intended for such as otters, dogs and cats. An animal caught in a snare can endure acute pain and suffering.”

Dale Vince added: “This isn’t just about one fox or one estate – it’s about changing how we coexist with wildlife across Britain. I want to extend an invitation to the Duke. Let’s meet and discuss how these vast lands could become a beacon of wildlife conservation.

“There’s an opportunity here for the Duke to transform the way large estates operate, to co-exist with nature rather than see it as a pest to control – and to create a wonderful legacy by setting a new standard for land stewardship.”

The Grosvenor spokesperson said: “Grosvenor undertakes significant work across our rural estates to protect, enhance, and restore sensitive environmental habitats and have been credited for our conservation activities. As part of this, we regularly engage or partner with several conservation organisations aligned to promoting nature recovery.”

A spokesperson for the National Gamekeepers Organisation, which is campaigning against an outright ban on snares including HCRs, said: “It appears that the animal was released unharmed, which is an important safety factor with code-compliant snares. HCRs are used by land managers and keepers where shooting of foxes is not viable, in order to protect ground-nesting birds and lambs at lambing time.”

A Defra spokesperson told us: “This government was elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans to improve animal welfare in a generation, including banning the use of snare traps.”

It is also planning to ban the import of hunting trophies from abroad, puppy farming and smuggling and trail hunting.

Published: The Mirror