ANIMAL rights protesters demonstrated in Rossett against the use of snares. The group of campaigners gathered outside the national headquarters of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) at Marford Mill on Tuesday last week. Chris Wild of the National Anti Snaring Campaign, who travelled all the way from West Sussex to join the protest explained: 'The League Against Cruel Sports has produced a new publication exposing the cruelty of snares set by gamekeepers to trap foxes. 'The snare is wholly indiscriminate and traps badgers, deer, cats and dogs causing an immense amount of suffering. 'We are targeting the head offices of the BASC, who hypocritically call themselves a conservation group. 'We want to embarrass them into action. 'They have a code of practice, but that can't stop a badger going in a snare.' But a BASC spokesman said the group condemns illegal snaring and actively fights wildlife crime in partnership with the police. He stated that the Government has recently examined snaring practices as part of its review of animal welfare legislation. 'The Government has decided snares have a legitimate and humane role to play in wildlife management,' said the BASC spokesman. 'BASC was part of the review process, and is now actively involved in helping to establish best practice and codes of conduct. 'Research carried out for the League Against Cruel Sports, part of the demonstration today, used snares in the work for a report into fox behaviour in the 1990s. 'The researchers caught foxes in snares before fitting them with radio collars and releasing them. 'Animal rights bodies have argued throughout the debate on hunting that pest control is most humanely carried out by shooting. 'It is therefore both misguided and contradictory to be demonstrating outside an organisation which upholds the highest standards in the field and whose members contribute enormous amounts of time, effort and money to conservation in the countryside.' He added: 'Most of the demonstrators were bussed up to Cheshire. 'They are semi-professional activists who know nothing about the county, nothing about peat control and nothing about conservation.' | 
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