Target: Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Goal: Criminalize the killing of trapped foxes for the fur trade.
A man in rural Wales runs a one-man pelt operation, killing hundreds of wild foxes each year. Although pelt farms are considered so cruel that they are outlawed in Britain, a legal loophole allows wildlife hunters to snare foxes and kill them to sell their pelts. David Sneade takes advantage of that loophole, selling furs to Sweden and the United States. He clubs snared foxes to death, dismembers the bodies, stretches the skin on racks, and then posts about his process on Facebook.
Members of the public have seen Sneade in the act of killing the foxes and describe the scene of him battering the animals to death as “incredibly disturbing” and traumatic. Sneade kills about 300 foxes a year and has told reporters that he feels what he does is less cruel than the dangers a fox might encounter in the natural world. This analysis comes from a man who uses the foxes’ own brain fluid to treat the pelts and leaves the skinned bodies of the dead animals out in the open for birds to feed. One witness who has seen Snead killing foxes said, “The way the fox was handled was disgusting and incredibly disturbing.”
Sneade openly posts photos on Facebook of the furs and skins of animals he has trapped and killed in the Pembrokeshire coast national park. He operates with the knowledge that setting snares is legal in the UK as long as the snares themselves are not designed to kill the animal. When Sneade catches a fox in a snare, he then bludgeons the animal to death because a quicker killing by gunshot would ruin the pelt.
Sign this petition to urge the United Kingdom to ban non-lethal animal snares.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Prime Minister Johnson,
Farms that raise and kill animals for their pelts are considered so barbaric that the United Kingdom has banned the practice. However, a legal loophole that allows hunters to set snares as long as the snares are not designed to kill allows people to continue to trap and kill wildlife for their pelts. David Sneade does just that, killing about 300 foxes a year with a wooden bat.
This killing is brutal and unnecessary. It is violent and traumatizing for the animal and it also allows humans to disrupt the natural food web that exists in the wild. I urge you to outlaw the use of snares in Britain and put an end to this loophole in the fur trade.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: David Sneade