Respect for Animals, a leading campaign group against the international fur trade, has called on the Welsh Government to review the legal framework around trapping in Wales. This comes after a national outcry in response to an investigation that revealed a man in Wales has been killing and skinning hundreds of foxes for their fur around the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
The Hunt Investigation Team exposed the fur trapper, self-described as ‘the last fur trapper in Britain’.
The foxes are caught with snares and left struggling for hours, while video footage shows the trapper bludgeoning a stricken fox with a bat before dragging the wounded animal into the open, where he crushes the fox’s ribcage in the cruellest fashion (to protect the fur quality).
The foxes are then taken to his home to be skinned and the fur pelts sold abroad.
The Welsh Government’s Code of Practice On The Use Of Snares makes it clear that: “It is an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal under their control (this applies to animals whilst held in snares and the means by which they are killed).”
Campaign group Respect for Animals insist that this must be strengthened to ensure that fur trapping in Wales is a clear punishable offence.
Mark Glover, Campaigns Director, said:
“It is unacceptable for the fur trapper to inflict such cruelty on animals without threat of prosecution.
We have been involved with undercover investigations around the world into wild fur trapping and every single one has been sickening. To see a fox being killed for its fur by stamping and suffocation in a British National Park is a national disgrace. The Welsh Government needs to act urgently to close all loopholes and make sure the law is very clear that this is not legal.”
Respect for Animals is running a petition on the activist website Care2 demanding that the welsh Government bans fur trapping, gaining over a thousand signatures in its first few hours.
